So One Man
by chezchuckles
Summary: Co-authored by cartographical, chezchuckles, and muppet 47. Something of a post-ep for Recoil. 'As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.'
1. Chapter 1

**So One Man**

* * *

a** co-authored **story by** cartographical **and** chezchuckles**

* * *

_As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another._  
_-Proverbs_

* * *

It's surprising.

Not in the least because he doesn't _get_ surprised anymore.

He's used to owing people. He's gotten to the point where he almost likes it: that swamping wave of pressure, that gasping, drowning feeling. The way that anything is justifiable when you're fighting your way up for air.

It's not surprising that he's wound up owing her, that, in the end, she's yielded to her holier-than-thou code of justice to save his life.

What's surprising is that he doesn't _mind_ owing her. He's drowning beneath that all-consuming debt, but he doesn't mind, not when she's right there drowning with him. He can feel the sucking pull of it at her when she tackles him, can feel the agony of indecision through her coat and her turtleneck and the too-thick layer of denim. His lungs stutter at the flaming heat of the bomb, but there's a heartbeat after he knows he'll survive that he takes a minute to revel in it. Her jagged inhales and exhales as she presses him down to the pavement. The livewire of her body, crackling with a blazing, anguished current.

What's surprising is the excitement of discovery, the way she pulls and pushes and prods at places deep within him that he never knew existed. He had her mother murdered, he had her shot in the chest, and he's not sorry. Not sorry for the death of Johanna Beckett, surely, but also not sorry for the survival of her daughter. He should be working to bring down the detective, deals be damned. He should be having the whereabouts of that filed tortured out of her and her shadow, should have them screaming out everything they know from deep in a dark basement before dumping their burnt and mangled bodies in the Hudson. But he can't. Won't. Not when he can't stop watching the tortured flex of her jaw, the agonized work of her throat when she looks at him.

What's surprising is that he can't even bring himself to want it to end.

* * *

So a month later, when he's standing on the second story of a warehouse and she and her writer friend are before him on their knees, M14s pressed firmly against the backs of their skulls, he's almost sorry.

It's the middle of the night, and the spill of ambient light through the tall windows of the unfinished office building is enough to glance off the graceful line of her too-tense jaw.

Her eyes keep flickering to the writer, who, despite the cold concrete pressing up into his knees and the steady pressure of the assault rifle against the back of his neck, looks ready to do damage.

"She saved your fucking life," he growls.

"Shut up, Castle," she murmurs, her jaw barely moving. Her right eye is starting to swell, and there's a tension in the set of her left shoulder that betrays some underlying damage. He wonders, slightly less than idly, how hard she fought before she succumbed to the efforts of the team he sent. He's sure that the second a gun came up against her writer, the fight left her immediately.

He walks up to her, stares down at the tangle of hair at the top of her head, swallows thickly before crouching down to look her in the eyes. "I've recently come across some interesting intelligence," he starts, pitching his tone low, going for the fine line between threatening and affable, "that indicates that the file you said you had is in quite a few different pieces."

"Did you," she murmurs, not even close to a question, her eyes flashing, daring him.

"Obviously, I thought it best that you come in and we had a little talk."

* * *

A talk. A talk. He can talk. Castle does talking.

She told him to shut up.

But he can talk. Can he talk?

He darts a look over at Beckett and she's staring steadfastly out the window of the construction site, the side of her face swelling up so thickly that he can't even see the beautiful green of her iris. It's a shame; he would like to see her eyes before-

It's hard to keep back the swamping grief that drowns him whenever he looks at her. All his words are gone.

He stays silent. He sucks in a wet breath through the vise around his chest and tries to get it back, but it's gone.

"You have nothing, Detective."

Castle can't even look at Bracken, can't avert his eyes from the disaster of his partner on her knees with a gun to her head.

"No file. No evidence. No hold over me."

Is Castle just going to watch while they execute her? Or will they do him first, make her watch.

But could he possibly not look at her until the last? Could he - in his final moments - not have Kate Beckett be the only thing he sees?

"Frankly, Detective, I'm disappointed. Of course, I expected to meet you over the barrel of gun one day, but oddly. . .not mine."

Would he just shut up? Castle doesn't want to hear this; he wants his last moments to be filled with only the sound of Beckett's breath whistling through her swollen throat. He wants to time his exhales to hers and close his eyes with the image of her defiant, fierce body next to his when it comes time.

He wants more time.

Oh God, he wants more time with her.

This hasn't been nearly enough.

Bracken stands with a sigh.

* * *

They are taking Castle.

"What are you doing to him?" she rasps. The panic crawls back out of the hole she shoved it down in, claws at her throat. "No. What are you doing to him?"

Castle is manhandled up, his face stony and fearful at the same time, and her body leans after him. He's wordless as he's dragged away, and her mouth works soundlessly in an silent echo of nothing.

She has nothing.

And then he's gone.

"No. Fuck, at least do it together. You son of a bitch, at least-"

"Clear the room," Bracken says dispassionately.

The door shuts after the senator's goons, and Castle is gone.

Castle is gone.

She can't breathe.

"I expected more than this," Bracken murmurs.

She stares at the empty place beside her, the startling void. It aches already.

Alone.

She's going to die alone.

He's going to-

he's going to-

die

he's-

_alone._

* * *

The zip tie around his hands cuts into his wrists. His knees crack against the floor as they shove him down in the unfinished office next door.

Will he hear the gunshot that ends her?

A hood is dropped over his head and the darkness is absolute.

Not even her face comes to him.

In the end, not even that.

Just the sound of his own breathing and the phantom touch of her lips from yesterday morning.

Yesterday morning. He woke to her hair over his chest and her face turned away, his arm numb under her body. He woke to her rousing slowly and moving over him, the brush of her mouth in good morning.

Good morning, Rick. That smile he could feel against his skin.

_Good morning, Kate._

* * *

Her chest is tight, her throat swollen, and her breathing is so loud she can hear nothing else.

It whistles hard through her trachea, her face throbs. It is all so much worse without him.

A black cloth is dragged over her head and she chokes, swaying forward with the force of Bracken's jerking movement.

His hand comes to her shoulder to prop her up and she flares her nostrils in the darkness to get a grip on herself.

She will not bow to him. She will not cower.

Castle is alone but they have-

they have been together.

She has him burned into every atom of herself, has him imprinted so deep-

Bracken's hand at her shoulder skims up to the side of her face, the black cloth the only thing between them.

Even now, she's going to be denied Castle. Bracken's hand on her and not Castle's.

She struggles to call it to mind, the width and warmth of his palm against her cheek as he pushes a strand of hair behind her ear.

Bracken's fingers trail to her shoulder blade.

Even now she's denied Castle.

The hand disappears and it is just Beckett alone with the mad rush of her blood in her ears and the broken edge of her breathing.

* * *

He hears nothing.

For so long, nothing. Nothing.

Time escapes.

His heart is pounding and his hands are sweating and still. Nothing.

He turns slightly and there's no response, no butt of a gun to the side of his face, no kick in the gut from a steel-toed boot.

He breathes harder in anticipation and rocks his head forward and then back to slip the hood off.

He sees light. The dawning sun coming in through the plastic over the pane-less windows of the office.

No one else but himself.

Castle sucks in a breath and staggers to his feet, his body listing crookedly as his numb knees begin to come back to life.

He spins slowly in the unfinished office, the exposed wires of the electrical outlets and the steel crossbeams giving over to dry wall with its seams spackled.

And he's alone.

He is completely alone.

* * *

The gust of air is her only warning.

A hand at her shoulder.

The one hand - the touch she couldn't keep-

"Kate."

The hood is pulled away and she blinks in the grey light.

"Castle." She gasps and lurches into him, her bound wrists coming to one side and gripping the edge of his jacket, her face pressed into his neck. "Castle, Castle-"

"You're alive," he breathes. "We're alive."

She feels his hands fumbling at her wrists, the quick panic of a razor blade against her bindings, and then she can throw her arms around him and hang on. Clutching.

"What - what did - how-"

"He left," Castle gruffs out. "He just. . .they left."

And even though it is Castle's hand at her neck, cupping her cheek, she still feels the residue of the senator's last touch.

She's alive.

And she's strangely. . .disappointed.

He should have killed her when he had the chance.

* * *

By the time he watches her throw her arms around the writer's neck, he's stopped being surprised. When it comes to her, nothing surprises him anymore.

The Zeiss binoculars are cold and heavy in his hands, but he has a perfect view from the third floor of the vacant building across the street from the construction site. He can see the tense set of her shoulders, the tilt of her neck to offset the pain of her swollen face, the shakiness of her shadow's hand as he trails his fingertips along her darkening jaw.

He's had contact with her three times, now. Through the metal of her Glock as a sharp starburst of pain lanced through his cheekbone instead of the searing jolt of the bullet he'd been expecting. Through the too-thick layer of her clothing as she flung her body into his and the flaming heat of the bomb blazed above them. Through the thin layer of cloth that he'd dragged over her head before he'd left her tied up and alone.

He closes his eyes and breathes those times in and traces the threads back from the pain of her gun slamming into his face, back through the jagged trauma of her twenties, then forward from the heat of her cheek under that cloth to the time when they will meet again with nothing between them.

He should have killed her. He knows this. But he's not surprised anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**So One Man**

* * *

co-authored by **cartographical**, **chezchuckles**, and **muppet_47**

* * *

From his safe distance across the street, the Senator watches his detective stumble slowly out of the room. Watches the way the writer walks three inches behind her, the slight twitch of his fingers just underneath her elbow, ready to catch her if she trips. Watches the way she keeps glancing over to him, like she needs to reassure herself he's still there. Watches the way their hands bump steadily together and then finally clasp as they wind into the hall and out of his field of vision.

The light is just edging into the sky when he walks out to Caviato's car, wedged into an alley three blocks away. He's never done this before. Never taken a car in the middle of the night to personally deliver a message. Never stood with a handful of men and their machine guns in a half-finished construction site. Never stroked his fingers along a hood-covered cheek.

They would be dead if he hadn't been there. The men he pays to take care of these kinds of things would have disposed of them effectively, efficiently. But this result isn't so far from ideal. Beckett's walking home, but she's walking under the oppressive weight of his power; she's walking under the stifling knowledge that he can end them on a whim.

"Want a tail on them?" Caviato asks as he opens the door for the Senator.

"No," Bracken says, decisive, as he slides into the car. "They got the message."

"Where to?"

"City Harvest Soup Kitchen – I'll still make the early-morning photo op."

"You got it," Caviato says, and then they're pulling away.

He'll go about his day at work, this photo op and then a chain of meetings, everything he has trouble getting done when he's out of town, before catching a late flight back to DC. He'll go about his life, undisrupted, unworried.

They won't.

* * *

She finds herself making a fist when she's not conscious of it, when she can't control it. Castle keeps taking her hand and pushing his fingers between hers, easing her up, and a jittery restraint comes back to her with his unspoken guidance.

They walk the dawn-licked streets in the grey hour, hands touching, shoulders and hips, and she just can't say anything. All the words are inadequate to the enormity of this night.

They don't have any money, of course, no phones or wallets or her weapon. Nothing. Her heel is somehow crooked, making her list into his side, and her face hurts so badly that she can't quite concentrate on anything else.

So it's Castle who figures out what to do, borrows a phone from a man in a business suit (forces him to let them borrow it) and calls the 12th, Castle who waits with her under the street light for Esposito, Castle who uses his fingers to gently explore her cheekbone.

"I don't think it's broken," he says finally.

She nods and swallows back the specter of death.

* * *

She keeps the ice on her face and leans against his shoulder in the back of the cab. Ryan and Esposito were furious about her insistence that no police report be filed; she called Gates from her own desk phone and asked for the weekend off. The boys wanted to arrest the senator and perp walk him into the precinct, but at least Castle understands, at least he gets it.

They can't do that. They've struck an uneasy and incomprehensible balance, because Bracken _knows_ they have nothing and still-

The cab pulls up to Castle's loft and she realizes she didn't give it any thought, and of course, where else is she going but with him?

He keeps two fingers at her elbow on the elevator ride up and she eases the ice pack off her cheek and winces at the numb burn of cold, the ache of it in her skull. Coming inside his front door, he takes the ice from her and nods towards the couch, and she goes.

Bracken knows they have nothing.

It runs through her head like a litany, a dirge:

Bracken knows they have nothing. They have nothing. They have-

"Try this," Castle murmurs, suddenly sitting in front of her on the coffee table. She blinks back to the present and he's holding a new cold pack in his hand, one of those fancy blue gel kinds, unlike the plastic ziploc bag of ice that melted all down the inside of her wrist and pooled in her elbow.

She opens her hand for it, but somehow can't make that last connection between synapse and muscle fiber. It won't go: her mouth won't work to say anything, and her body won't process her commands.

And it's his hand now reaching for her, cradling the ice pack to her face as he leans in, his eyes everywhere but meeting hers, and his free hand comes up to stroke the hair back from her cheekbone, linger.

She swallows hard at the sense memory that touch evokes, the dark black hood over her head and the heat of a palm, and now her stomach rolls, turbulent and violent and wretched, and she bows forward into Castle to erase the feeling, erase it all.

His arms come around her and she feels the ice pack drop somewhere to the floor, but he doesn't let go, and she slowly realizes her hands are in fists in his shirt and her teeth are at the skin of his neck and she really needs to dial it down before she scares him.

Shit, too late. They are both so far past _scared_ that she doesn't think anything can touch what they are now.

His fingers are gentle at hers, prying her loose, and she gratefully leans back, ducks her head to stare at the floor so that she can get her shit together.

She is just - everything is raw, and her nerves are ragged, and when they dragged him out of the room and she could do absolutely nothing-

"I love you, Kate," he rasps suddenly.

She jerks her head up, shock flash-freezing her brain so that all she can do is stare stupidly at him as he struggles with it. His face is that half-twisted agony of frustration, and why the _hell_ is it always when horror looms before them that she hears those words? Can't he just be smiling and happy and turn to her and say it like it's a good thing?

Like the truth of his love doesn't rip him apart. Like this is actually _worth_ how awful it makes him feel.

His head drops and his hands clench around hers, and then he's bending over to get the ice and clearing his throat and fumbling and damn it all, she just made him feel even more awful over it, didn't she? No wonder he never says it.

And that's finally the thing that unlocks her throat and lets loose her tongue.

"Castle," she scrapes out.

He won't look at her at first, just holds the ice, but she leans in closer and takes it out of his hands and then he's glancing at her almost involuntarily.

"Castle, I love you too."

He swallows and nods, and the breath he lets out is so shaky, so deep, that she knows he didn't need her to say it, he just needed it said.

He needed it to be okay to say it.

* * *

The tightening in his chest has downgraded from a severe hyperventilation to a mere asthmatic closing of the bronchial passages.

Because at least it's out there now. It's been said and there's not the chance that he'll live with that regret. Or die with it.

She looks somehow _stronger_ now for the hearing, or the saying of it, and he follows her mutely into the kitchen and pulls out a bottle of wine. And then one more. And then, heck with it, a third. No point fooling himself.

She closes her fingers around his on the neck of the third bottle and shakes her head, takes it away from him, goes to the wine rack and opens the clear glass door and then puts it back.

When she turns around, she must see the surprise on his face, because she shrugs with a little quirk of her lip that could almost be a smile. "Not too much, Castle."

He stands there dumbly, and then he gets it - he gets it - and he huffs out a breath that is both unsteady and relieved at the same time.

"Got plans for me?" he murmurs, trying for casual but falling so very short.

"I have plans for us," she says firmly. She gives him a studying glance, in that way her eyes have of assessing him, seeing his faults and his failings and the things he tries to hide. She comes back from the wine cabinet and slides her arm around his waist and puts a hand at his chest and he swallows it down, again, he has to just - he has to be good at this. He has to be able to handle it because if he can't-

If he can't, he's always known, somewhere in the back of his mind, that she'll do something extreme to _keep_ him from having to handle it.

He can handle it. He can handle anything she needs him to.

Castle wraps both arms around Kate, not too tightly, and brings her up into his embrace. He feels her deep breath in and the way her shoulders shrug up into him like she believes that if she makes herself small enough, if she can get close enough, it will all go away.

Alexis does that too sometimes. It makes him feel like he really can, he really can make everything bad disappear.

"What breakfast food goes with wine?" he says then.

She stutters on a laugh, lifts her head up to look at him. "I don't - how about scrambled eggs? No, wait. I know. That omelette thing you made me eat. With the chocolate and marshmallows."

Chocolate, marshmallows, wine. Sure, why not? "Woman after my own heart," he murmurs, and he can't help the extra squeeze and the brush of his lips across her temple before he finally releases her.

When he turns to gather ingredients, she works at his side to make their breakfast, pouring healthy glasses of wine for them and sticking close.

He'll figure out how to handle it.

He will.

He won't lose her.

* * *

Castle dreams about it every night the following week.

First, the boom, the flash that obscures Kate as she slams into Bracken, her arms wrapping around him as she drags him to the ground. A month ago.

Then the ambush, her sharp exhalation as the boot punches into her ribs, the dull smack of the fist hitting her face.

The slide of cold fear that pools in his gut when Bracken's goon shoves a gun to his head. The sweat on his palms and upper lip, not from the chill of the steel against his temple, but from the sight of Kate on her knees, her fight gone, evaporated by her terror for him.

The guy hits her one more time. Her head snaps to the side, but Kate doesn't make a sound, only yanks her eyes back to him. Her hands aren't yet tied, she could still fight back. She doesn't.

This is where he wakes, drenched in sweat, sick to his stomach, already reaching across the darkness for Kate's shoulder, her hip.

It's his fault they were taken.

If he hadn't just stood there, his main goal to stay out of her way as Kate defended them, if he'd been good for _anything_ other than as a hostage to control her, she would have gotten away.

Kate denies it. She says there were too many of them, that she would have been overpowered no matter what.

But he knows the truth. The morning after, he'd startled awake, the dream still cold and clear in his mind. Castle slid towards her until they were both on her side of the bed, his hand ghosting against her mangled face. He tried to explain, but she waved him off. "We _did_ get away, Castle. It's over. We got out."

But he remembers the look on Bracken's face as the senator watched Kate, a look that twists Castle's stomach with its very familiarity, and he's struck with the nauseating fear that they aren't out of it at all.

Sometimes the dream images come to him in the moment right before sleep. He always jerks awake, still in free fall, as behind his eyes Kate is caught in an explosion of light, then disappears into the darkness, taking Bracken with her. The rest of the night he'll lie awake, listening to Kate breathe, once again certain that he could watch Bracken die.

Every time, every, every time, Castle tries to tell himself he's being stupid. The threat, if not neutralized, is at least contained. Bracken doesn't want to kill them. He won't think too hard about why.

He tries to believe that Kate will be okay. He _does_ believe that Bracken won't get to her, her resolve, her sense of self. She's saved herself so many times, pulling back from the edge at the last second.

He wants to believe, fervently wants to believe. But then she smiles at him over lunch, or surreptitiously squeezes his hand at the precinct, and with a rush of shame it hits him again that all the resolve in the world - all his _belief_ - won't protect Kate from a gunshot in a parking garage at the hand of his ex-muse, from a mummy's curse that her writer tag-along inevitably lets loose, from a frozen boxcar and a bomb that he can't help leading them straight to because of all his questions.

In some ways, in may ways, he's brought this on her - he's the one who opened up her mother's case and found the connections to Coonan and started it all back up again. And just because he's stupid enough to think the good guys always win doesn't mean they will.

His resolve, his wide-eyed belief won't protect her from a partner who can't protect _himself_; a boyfriend who is a liability, and who will - if it goes on like this - get her killed.

So this morning, a week after the near-execution at the construction site, he slips out of bed as soon as the dream yanks him from sleep. Castle gets dressed in the dark and pauses over Kate, watching her chest rise and fall, his fingers hovering over her half-healed face.

Thirty minutes later he's in a dusty gym, lifting weights and running drills and getting knocked on his ass by a man fifteen years his senior with a scar cutting through his eyebrow. Later, that man will hold the bag for him, shouting instructions about his form and stance, while Castle listens and learns and throws punch after methodical punch, his mind clear and focused.

It's odd. He's always imagined that wanting to kill someone, that hate, would be a chaotic mess of loathing and fury, something hot and out of control. Not this cold, eerie calm that settles over him whenever he pictures Bracken dead.

And Kate alive.

Kate will live.


	3. Chapter 3

**So One Man**

* * *

co-authored by **cartographical**, **chezchuckles**, and **muppet_47**

* * *

He doesn't think about her for another month, not until Garretson is busy pitching an absolute fit over a dead hooker.

"It was five years ago," he's blathering desperately, seemingly not realizing that he's giving up a veritable goldmine of information, "but I recognized her as soon as I saw her face, and now she's _dead_, and it's been two weeks and word is they've all but given up on finding her murderer."

Bracken watches the man as he scrubs a hand down his face. He's alternately grateful and horrified that the other Senator from New York is such an idiot.

"Just, _fuck_," Garretson blathers on. "I knew what she did, but she was a decent girl. How's she wind up dead in an alley, and how the _fuck_ have they not found out who killed her?"

Bracken blinks, takes a long sip of his Glenmorangie. "Solving murders is a messy business," he finally says, waving his hand expansively.

"Well, I can't even look sideways at this thing, not given my – prior involvement."

The man might be a moron, but he's surprisingly hard to leverage, and Bracken has a sudden spark of inspiration. "You know what?" he says. "I've got a couple hard-working contacts over at the NYPD. I can see if I can't give this thing a nudge for you."

And then Garretson is prattling gratefully and it's all smiles and shaking hands and a future, nebulous favor promised.

It's not entirely true that he hasn't thought about her. Twice he'd woken in the middle of the night, tangled in the sheets, a low and pulsing hunger thrumming through his blood, and when he'd closed his eyes he'd pictured the ramrod straight line of her spine, the jut of her jaw, the tense clench of her fingers. Both times, it had taken a long, long time before he'd fallen back to sleep.

* * *

She freezes and Castle runs into her back, a little breathless sound in her ear, but all she can do is clutch her coffee mug with one hand and stare.

Bracken. He - the senator is standing right there in her precinct, at her desk, even as Captain Gates shakes the man's hand.

"Kate?"

She swallows and then feels the sting of hot liquid on the back of her hand, dripping over her fingers, and she tears her eyes away from the senator to deal with the mess.

Castle is already dropping a napkin to the floor and mopping it up with his foot; she switches hands and flexes her fingers, but she's hyper-aware of the man in her bullpen.

"Why'd you stop?" Castle is chuckling lowly, taking her coffee from her and setting it on the break room counter, wrapping her scalded hand in another napkin. "I plowed right into you. Heh. That's what _she_ said. Really, Kate, sometimes it seems like you set me up for these without even trying."

She slowly turns her head to see that wriggling eyebrow, the leer imprinted deep into his mouth, and her chest clenches hard, her fingers curl up to catch his. "Bracken is here."

The blood drains out of his face and his lips go slack, his lashes flutter as his eyes dart around. "What?" he croaks.

"At my desk. Gates is-"

"Detective Beckett!" the Captain exclaims then, gesturing for her to come over. "The Senator has a personal request."

"Oh, God," Castle rasps.

"Castle," she whispers and she feels his hand clench harder around hers. "Castle. I can't-"

"You got this," he whispers fiercely and she meets his eyes again, the intensity flaming in them. "Broad daylight, middle of the precinct. You got this."

Doesn't help, but what else is there?

She feels Castle wrapping her hand back around her coffee mug and she takes a small measure of comfort in that, in having the prop and also him at her side. She steps out into the short hall and waves towards the conference room.

"Would you like to talk in private, Senator?"

Bracken smiles that slow smile, folds his trenchcoat over his arm as he comes towards them. "That will be perfect, Detective Beckett. Thank you. After you."

He stands to one side with a slight bow, and his eyes are just too amused, too pleased, but Kate can't do anything other than walk inside the conference room and brace herself for whatever comes next.

* * *

Castle closes the door behind him as he follows Bracken into the conference room, the snick of the latch loud in the silence - the echo something like the ratcheting click of a gun being cocked at his head while Kate drops to her knees in defeat.

He jerks, his muscles tensing, his body tight with the need to grab Kate and get her out, away from Bracken.

Kate throws him a quizzical look and Castle forces a weak smile. He peels his fingers off the doorknob and tries to drop his shoulders, take a deep breath, but every nerve is on edge, high alert, and he wildly wonders if this is how prey feels when a predator comes into view.

He has to calm down.

They can do this. _Kate_ can do this.

"Detective Beckett." Bracken seats himself on the couch and relaxes against the cushions, his posture loose. His face is open, his eyes never leaving Kate. "I'm here to request a favor."

"Is that why you didn't kill us? So we can do favors for you?" Kate is still standing, her arms crossed, her spine stiff. Castle takes half a step closer, fighting the urge to step in front of her and shove her behind him, to shield her from this fresh fuckery.

Somehow Bracken almost seems to coil, his muscles imperceptibly tightening, bunching. He cocks his head, and the hair on the back of Castle's neck rises as the senator studies Kate like he can see through her clothes, into her thoughts. As though he is memorizing her.

"Something like that." Bracken lets the silence stretch out for a moment before he sucks in a breath and sits up straighter, his expression morphing from assessing to calculating. "It's not as though I have any other reason to let you live."

Something in Kate's face has Castle instinctively moving towards her, but she glances at him out of the corner of her eye and shakes her head once, holding him off. Bracken flicks a look to him and back to Kate, his lips twisting with the hint of a smile.

"What's the favor?" Kate is all control and hard edges, and Castle's heart flips with a desperate sort of pride. But then Bracken's smile grows, and Castle can feel the panic pinching his chest, narrowing his lungs, because the bastard likes this.

Bracken pulls a paper from inside his jacket and holds it out to Kate. "This woman was murdered three weeks ago. There are no leads. "

Kate takes the paper with her fingertips, careful not to touch him, but Bracken doesn't let go, makes her tug at the paper before he releases it, teasing her. Castle can feel a pulse start to throb in his temple, hot anger joining the panic that swirls in his chest.

Kate glances at the paper and shakes her head. "I don't know this name." She shrugs. "Not our case. Sorry."

Bracken's face loses a touch of its smug. "I am aware of that, Detective Beckett. I would like for you to make it your case. A friend of mine is anxious that her killer be brought to justice."

"Someone associated with you turned up dead? Shocking." Not helping. Castle knows he's not helping, but this is _bullshit_.

Bracken ignores his taunt completely. "I've already arranged for the case to be transferred to you. All relevant information should be on your desk by noon." He is all casual nonchalance, like threatening people with death unless they follow his orders is an everyday occurrence for him.

Castle almost snorts to himself. Of course it's an everyday occurrence for him. "Are you sure you didn't kill her?"

In some distant part of his mind Castle knows he should shut up, but he can't seem to manage it, not with the fury churning in his gut. The rage is building at the base of his spine, the back of his neck, because he knows Bracken doesn't give a shit about this girl. The senator probably didn't kill her, but Castle knows Bracken couldn't care less who did. She's just an excuse. Whatever the fuck this is has nothing to do with this poor dead girl and everything to do with Kate.

Bracken doesn't flinch, doesn't even look at him, just keeps his eyes fixed on Kate, who is staring at Castle, her eyebrows high, her patented _oh my God, shut up _look, but he can't. His fists are clenched so hard his nails are cutting into his palms and Bracken _has to stop looking at her_.

"I'm sorry, it's just that you've killed so many people, I don't know how you keep track. What if we investigate and find out it's you?"

Bracken finally turns his direction, slowly, like the damn snake he is, but he doesn't make eye contact. He frowns slightly, his gaze resting somewhere over Castle's left shoulder like the senator finds something fucking fascinating about the wall.

And Castle just can't stop. "I'll tell you what. If it does turn out to be you, we can attribute it to random gang violence."

Too far. Castle hears Kate's quick intake of breath, but still Bracken does nothing but turn back to Kate. His voice is even.

"Detective Beckett, I'd like to speak with you alone."

* * *

Castle stares through the window, pacing back and forth, unable to keep to still, the need to protect and defend making him tight, tying him up. Ryan and Esposito keep shooting him looks like they're about two seconds from bodily removing him from the hallway and then sitting on him to keep him contained.

Castle knows he looks suspicious and probably demented. He knows that Bracken can't do anything to Kate right here in the middle of the precinct, but he can't stand it. Can't stand to have her touched by his evil, can't stand leaving her to take him on alone, while once again Castle stands uselessly on the sidelines.

Kate says something to the senator, her manner brisk, detached, her agitation evident by her ramrod posture, as if she is trying to hold herself in, away from the man before her.

Bracken answers Kate, says something with that sick smile, and then he touches her.

Bracken is fucking _touching her_, his fingers against her jaw, his thumb running along the healing bruise on her cheekbone, and Castle's stomach twists with such violence he can taste the bile in the back of his throat. Kate flinches so hard she loses her balance, has to grab a chair for support and _fuck this_.

He surges forward, yanks open the door. "Detective Beckett."

Kate turns and his gut clenches in helpless despair at the look in her eyes, the vulnerable curve of her shoulders.

"You have a phone call," he says.

Castle doesn't know how he's doing it, standing still, holding the door open when everything in him wants to snatch Kate against him, to hide her, disappear.

"Well." Bracken takes a step back, but he is slowly rubbing his fingers together, as though he is still savoring the feel of her skin. Castle can feel the heat rising up his neck, through his limbs, and he burns to slam Bracken to his knees, to put his shoe between his ribs. "I'll let you go. But I'll be in touch."

Kate nods and moves like she can't get out of the room fast enough. She doesn't look at Castle, but she brushes her hand with his as she slips through the door.

Bracken is watching her go, his lips curled up with pleasure, but in his eyes something is lurking, something dark and hot, and Castle's rage is suddenly extinguished. Cold, methodical clarity washes over him as his fingers curl into fists.

He knows that look, knows the way Bracken watches Beckett and follows her every movement, the way it feels to trade those verbal jabs back and forth, what it's like to use any flimsy excuse to be near her.

Castle knows exactly why they're still alive. "Don't you dare touch her."

For the first time Bracken looks right at him. And the senator smiles.

* * *

"What did he say to you? When he touched your face?" Castle sits in his chair at her desk and leans in, whispering. They should talk about this later, in private, but he doesn't look like he can wait.

Kate just shakes her head, her eyes on her desk, shuffling the same three papers over and over, pretending she's looking for something. "Nothing. Nothing important."

"Kate." Castle grabs her arm, yanks so she has to look at him. His grip and his tone are too hard, too brusque, a terror in his voice that seems to be eroding his control. "What did he _say_?"

Kate licks her lips. They're chapped, her whole body feels leached of color. She gestures towards the still-healing bruise on her face, her hand trembling. "He said it looked like it hurt."

She finally lifts her eyes to meet his gaze, but it's like the whole precinct is removed, behind glass.

"Is that all?"

"No."

Kate takes a breath, and she wishes Castle would unask his question, stop her, take it back, wishes he would pretend for one more second that Bracken's interest isn't what they both know it is.

Has become.

"He said he wondered if I thought of him, whenever I saw it in the mirror."

Castle looks hollowed out and she turns her head, stares at the empty white board.

"Looks like we have a case, Castle."

He makes a strangled noise in his throat as if to fight her on this.

She shakes her head. "Sooner it's done - sooner it's over. I just want to solve this damn case."

"No more favors," he scrapes out.

But they both know that's not how this works.


	4. Chapter 4

**So One Man**

* * *

co-authored by **cartographical**, **chezchuckles**, and **muppet_47**

* * *

He throws back another mini bottle of Jack Daniels, doesn't even wince anymore at the rough burn of it in his throat. The puddle-jumper bounces onto the tarmac in La Guardia, and he slides the fifth empty bottle into the seatback in front of him.

Usually a shot's enough to take the edge off of a day in chambers, but not today. Not after his Energy and Environment bill stalled and then died in the senate, taking with it the certainty of the VP bid, the bid that ever since that car bomb had been gaining nothing but momentum.

He goes through the motions mechanically: dragging his carryon to the baggage area, meeting Caviato at the curb, shooting off emails on his Blackberry through the jerky stop and start of 278 as they lurch toward Manhattan.

They cross the bridge and Caviato starts to take them around the Park to get to the Upper West Side, but the thought of his apartment, cold and empty, is suddenly utterly undesirable. "Drop me off at Whiskey Road instead," he says. "Near Union Square."

"Right," Caviato says, nodding sharply.

Whiskey Road is dark enough and quiet enough that he can feel anonymous. The couple of glasses of Lagavulin at least wash the lingering taste of the Jack out of his mouth, but he leaves with a sense of helpless frustration still thrashing in his chest, making his teeth clench, his fingers tighten into fists.

His feet hit the sidewalk outside the wine bar and he can hear the car service following at a respectful distance, and not even the enjoyment he gets from how walking still keeps Caviato on the clock instead of home with his family makes him feel any less. . .diminished.

What happens to a dream deferred?, he muses silently, the thought overripe in the afternoon light.

And so he almost doesn't notices the Richard Castle standee as he strides by the Barnes & Noble.

It brings him up short. He hasn't seen either of them since that day in the 12th when he called in that favor for Garretson. He'd heard from her Captain two days later, after the woman called him up with a too-smug tone and announced that the case was closed. He'd been in DC, but he'd signed and sent up a Thank You card and a bottle of champagne, called Garretson to let him know the news, and that had been the end of it.

He glances at his watch, steps inside the bookstore. The signing's been going for a while, but the line inside is impressively long. Bracken meanders over to the end of it, eyeing an oversized display.

_Naked Heat._

The nude silhouette of her draped over the letters, back arched, hand clutching a gun.

He picks up a copy and gets into line.

* * *

The back of his neck is tingling.

Castle glances up and freezes, paralyzed by a double punch of shock and adrenaline. Then his fight or _fight harder_ instinct kicks in, and he can barely keep himself in his seat.

Fucking Bracken. Three people back in line, smiling his sick smile.

Castle clenches his pen so hard it twists and flies out of his fingers, leaving a smear of ink instead of his signature across the title page of _Frozen Heat_.

"I'm sorry," he forces out, dragging his eyes to the woman in front of him. He grabs a new book and signs it, gritting his teeth against the nauseous panic and fury that swells and beats against his skin.

So stupid. He's let himself pretend it's over. After they solved the prostitute's murder Kate insisted it was done, unwilling or unable to talk about it. Castle let it go but religiously met his trainer four mornings a week. Just in case.

And now Bracken is here. Not at the 12th under the guise of a favor, but here, on Castle's turf, and it turns his stomach. This shit isn't over, it's _escalating._

Somehow Castle gets through the next two fans, smiling and signing on autopilot, all the while casting frantic glances toward the entrance. Kate's supposed to meet him here any minute.

Please let her be caught in traffic. Please let her be detained at work indefinitely, having caught a grisly triple murder at 4:55. Or maybe develop a sudden and oddly specific case of amnesia that causes her to forget only his book signings, _anything_, because if Kate shows up and Bracken fucking looks at her with his dirty eyes and his twisted mind, Castle is going to lose it and they are all going to be on the news. Brawl at Barnes & Noble. Story at eleven.

"Mr. Castle." Bracken rolls up to the table, all hale and hearty, only the slight smirk of his mouth indicting that he is aware that this is unusual; as if it's perfectly acceptable to stalk people like prey.

"Beckett's not here," Castle gets out, his voice like a growl.

Bracken seems taken aback for half a second before his face devolves back into his habitual sneer, his head cocked like he's confused. "I'm not here to see Detective Beckett."

"You're lying." Castle is done. He's not playing this game. "You're here because you hoped she'd be here."

"No." Bracken shakes his head slowly, like the idea has never occurred to him, like he isn't thinking God-knows-what about Kate _right now_. "Not that Detective Beckett isn't a lovely, intriguing, fascinating woman. But I'm sure you know that."

The senator smiles again, that slow, noxious smile spread across his face, and Castle knows Bracken can sense his helpless rage, can almost see the red haze that engulfs him.

"What are you doing here?" Castle carefully enunciates every word and tries to keep his voice low, to control himself. They're surrounded by press and fans, and getting arrested for punching Bracken in the face will not help Kate.

Bracken frowns, feigning confusion. "Isn't it obvious why I'm here?" He holds up his book. "I'm a fan, Mr. Castle. A fan of…Nikki Heat."

"I bet you are." Wildly Castle wonders if Bracken wants to provoke him into violence, into getting himself arrested so that Kate will be temporarily alone. Except that's crazy. _But all of this is crazy_. "A fan of fiction, certainly. You're so good at making it up yourself."

"You know, I do have some ideas. I think you should kill Jameson Rook. It would be interesting to see what Nikki does. Who she might turn to in her grief."

Castle doesn't have time for this bullshit, refuses to pretend. "Are you threatening me, Senator?"

"Mr. Castle, what an outrageous accusation, one that would almost certainly result in legal action should you choose to repeat it." The smile never leaves Bracken's face. "Don't be ridiculous, we're discussing fictional characters. But I guess it's easy for you to get confused, when you base your characters so closely and on you and Detective Beckett. I can't wait to start reading. Get to know her better."

Holy shit, this cannot be happening. Castle's fingers tighten into fists so he won't reach out and grab the book back. He wants to vomit at the sick violation of Bracken reading about Nikki, about Nikki and Rook together in bed. Castle throws another desperate glance at the door.

Bracken holds up _Naked Heat_. "I know I'm judging a book by its cover but," he rubs his thumb under Nikki's silhouette and licks his lower lip. "I have a feeling I'm really going to enjoy this."

Castle grips the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white, his rage about to boil over. Bracken's not even bothering to pretend. He has to leave before Kate sees him. Before he sees Kate. "You think I don't know what you're doing, you bastard? _Stay away from her_."

People are starting to stare, whispers fluttering up from the crowd, but Bracken seems oblivious, his calm, deliberate demeanor still in place.

"It's intriguing that it's her mother's murder that shapes Nikki into who she is." Bracken is staring at the cover, his index finger tracing Nikki's outline again and again. "You can almost say that the man responsible for her mother's death is the man who molded her, turned her into the remarkable woman she is today." Bracken looks up and meets Castle's stare, something perverted in the back of his eyes. "But you wouldn't call her remarkable. You would say she is… what is it? Extraordinary."

That's it.

Castle leaps to his feet, no longer caring about the eyes on him and the shocked murmurs from his fans, the fact that this will probably be on the internet within the hour.

"It's time for you to leave. Right now."

Bracken merely raises his eyebrows, dripping satisfaction, and glances to the side. He stills for a second, like a predator, and then abruptly steps back. "I think you're right, Mr. Castle. Now is the _perfect_ time to leave."

Bracken's lips twist once again as he turns and heads for the exit. Castle's eyes follow him and panic grips him as his stomach heaves. His leg jerks hard into the table in front of him in an instinctual urge to run across the store, to drag Bracken to the ground, to stop this.

Kate is standing in the doorway, oblivious.

* * *

She has to hide her smile into pressed lips and a ducking of her head, even as she's alone on the sidewalk outside the bookstore. There's a cardboard standee of Rick Castle in the window and she's trying so hard not to laugh.

He's adorable; he really is.

And it's been so long since she's felt so _happy_, and it's just him. The way he's relentlessly teased and wooed and joked and made love to her for months now, all in an effort to get them both back on solid ground.

It's worked.

She's there; she's stupidly beaming with it, and she felt the lack of him at the 12th precinct all day, and she wants to see him, wants to show up at his book signing and see the joy spread out in a smile on his face.

Kate bites her bottom lip and realizes she making love eyes at the cardboard cut-out of him. Jeez, get it together.

So she wraps her fingers around the metal handle of the door and pulls it open, walks inside.

* * *

She closes her eyes at the smell of paper and binding glue and leather, inhales a deep breath in the foyer to ward off the sensation of the packed crowd, the white noise of his fans, and the anticipation of seeing him.

She smiles, even with her eyes closed.

"How did I know you'd come?" the voice whispers sensuously, right in her ear.

Her body jerks back even as her eyes snap open and Senator Bracken is standing a breath away from her.

Her gaze races through the bookstore, skipping over strangers' faces until she finds her writer, hers, Castle.

His eyes are caught on hers, desperation and fear and white-hot anger pulsing through him. She stares back and feels her fists clenched, feels the chill seeping out at her from Bracken at her side, and then the two fingers at her elbow.

"You look simply stunning when you're angry."

She swallows and keeps her eyes trained on Castle a moment longer, layering herself in his ferocious and desperate love for her, letting him be her wall.

Bracken caught her off-guard and vulnerable, her smile on the surface of her eyes, but she finally can turn her head back to the man with every piece of armor intact and every defense shored up.

She lets him see nothing.

She lets him have absolutely nothing.

She leaves him there at the door and she walks steadfastly towards Castle.


	5. Chapter 5

**So One Man**

* * *

Kate has her fingers playing over his forearm when she drops the collection of mail on the kitchen counter, her keys after it. He's already sliding that arm around her waist and crowding in close at her back, his mouth setting off ripples of pleasure down her neck all the way to her toes, and she distractedly pushes the mail away from the edge, grips the counter with her fingers, needing to hold on.

Her knees dip and he chuckles, his body already catching hers, her heart pounding so hard in her chest that all she can hear is the rush of blood in her head.

His palm heats her skin right through her shirt and then his fingers are deftly, slowly unbuttoning it, and she just lets him, enjoying the seduction (who's she kidding? she never even needs to be seduced anymore), and her eyes open lazily as his mouth does too, right over her pulse point.

"Oh," she breathes out, her gaze jumping from the smooth expanse of the counter to the blank fridge to the shape of her sink and back down to the pile of mail, needing a focus but unable to find one.

"You smell good," he murmurs at her neck. "You feel even better."

She sways again, and his thigh lifts to nudge between hers and she bends forward with a gasp she can't help. Her hands fly forward to slap against the counter for leverage, his palm at the small of her back, the other at her hip, and she can't believe she's letting him do this to her again right here.

Her eyes open, stare blankly at the mail, the words that don't make sense, return addresses and numbers, blinking as his fingers trail over bare skin and tease the waistband of her pants, slipping-

Fuck.

She jerks as the words click in her brain, her body straightening up in a rush of horror, and she feels the back of her head connect with his chin, and they're both cursing.

"Kate?" he grits out, but she's shoving through the mail, circulars falling to the floor, the utility bill knocked aside, just so she can get at that one.

That one.

Hand-written. Her name.

Typed return address. _The Senator from New York._

She stares at it, the air in her apartment drifting over the exposed skin of her belly and making her shudder.

"What the hell?" he growls, and he reaches past her shoulder and plucks the thick, elegant envelope from her hands.

But she knows what it is.

It's an invitation.

* * *

"We can cancel. There's still time to cancel." The words echo slightly in his cavernous bathroom, his tone hard and undercut with desperation.

Kate's voice drifts in from the bedroom, weary with repetition. "You know we can't cancel, Castle. Bracken's holding the fundraiser to benefit the 12th. Gates wants us all there."

"I don't give a fuck about Gates." Castle's fingers trip and tangle in his tie, rage making him clumsy, his hands thick.

"It's not her fault. She – "

"I know whose fault this is, Kate." He can hear himself, sharp and angry, and he drops his hands and stares in the mirror at the knot that still won't go straight.

This is so unbelievable. It is literally not to be believed that he's fighting with his tie because The Senator from New York, William Bracken, aka that fucking, lying, murdering, obsessed-with-Kate bastard, has summoned them to a charity auction to benefit the 12th precinct.

_Supposedly_, Senator Bracken has ordered his minions to organize this sham of a charity event because he wants to pretend to express his appreciation for the way the fine officers of the 12th, who actually care about justice, worked so tirelessly to unravel the threats against him and save his sorry, worthless life.

Castle might be paraphrasing.

Except Bracken doesn't give a shit about the 12th, and it's _glaringly obvious_ that he has concocted this entire huge, elaborate scheme (that will gain him voter sympathy, the fucker ) in the hopes of seeing Beckett in a slinky dress. He's probably at home right now, praying to whatever god of darkness to whom he owes allegiance that Kate is wearing something cleavage revealing.

Ugh. Castle can't think about Bracken's eyes on Kate's cleavage or he might actually throw up. Instead, he casts his mind through her closet to see if he can recall any turtle-necked cocktail dresses.

_Nope._

Fuck this. Castle yanks the uncooperative tie through his collar and throws it on the bathroom counter before stalking back into the bedroom to pick another from his closet.

At the doorway he stops, struck dumb. His lungs seize, his limbs arrested of all movement at the sight of Kate putting on her jewelry in front of his dresser. Oh, _God._

For a moment Castle struggles, all of his words dammed up behind the lump in his throat, an involuntary reaction to the sheer stunning perfection that is Kate. Her hair is gathered at her neck in some intricately casual knot that begs to be undone, wispy tendrils escaping along her throat and temples to frame her face. In the dim light of his room her shoulders glow pale and fragile, left bare by her black dress…

That dress. His stomach drops as an unpleasant taste appears in the back of his throat. Castle narrows his eyes.

"What?" Kate's staring at him from underneath her lashes, her head tipped to the side while she fastens her earring.

Castle swallows in a pointless effort to coax some moisture into his mouth and closes his eyes to block the sight of her, just for a second. "That's the dress you wore the night you went out with Colin Hunt."

There's a beat of silence. Then, "I didn't go out with him, it was an undercover op – "

"Later you went out with him." Word vomit. Why is he talking? Castle opens his eyes. Kate has straightened up and is staring at him, heartbreaking understanding seeping across her face. She takes a step toward him.

"Colin Hunt was long ago, Castle, and it was nothing. You know that." She steps into his space, so very beautiful. "And I don't think you have that look on you face because of Colin Hunt."

Castle takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the tightening of his muscles and chest at the thought of her beautiful for someone else. That's not what this is.

Kate reaches out, her fingers light on his wrist. "This doesn't have anything to do with me. He's a politician, he's throwing this fundraiser so he'll look good." Kate's voice is weird, like she doesn't quite believe what she's saying. Because it's utter bullshit.

Castle squeezes out words. "And it's just coincidentally at the 12th?" He hates how petulant he sounds, like any of this is her fault.

Kate swallows, her hands curling around his. "No." She doesn't say anything else, and Castle can't stand it.

"I hate that dress." What? Shut up, shut up, shut –

"Me too." Kate shakes his arm until he raises startled eyes to hers. She manages half an eye roll. "That's why I'm wearing it."

"What?"

Kate huffs out a little breath. "I'm not going to spoil a perfectly hot dress by wearing it to an event that includes _Bracken._ Plus, you're in a terrible mood and neither of us wants to do this, and if I wore a dress I loved it would just get ruined by all the bad juju floating around."

Castle raises his eyebrows, trying to help, to go along with her attempt at levity. "Did you just say 'bad juju'?"

Kate smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I did. Yes."

She's trying so hard, and he hates this _so much_. Castle cups her shoulders, her skin soft and warm, and gently pulls her to him. "You don't believe in juju, bad or otherwise."

Kate sighs and carefully relaxes against him, her hair soft against his chin and neck. "But you do. And tonight I'll believe in anything that gets us through."

She almost holds steady, but as her voice hitches on the last word it's all Castle can do not to crush her against him, to hold her too tight. He fights the urge to frame her face with his hands and kiss her until she forgets all about tonight, until he has pulled down the fragile knot of her hair, until he has messed her up and marked her as his own, again and again.

"It will be okay," she whispers against his throat, her fingers sliding up and down along his spine. "We just have to get through tonight. Then it will be over."

"You're right," Castle lies, his arms aching with the effort not to drag her into his room, down to his bed, to tear off that dress and try to show her with his body just how he loves her, how desperate he is to stop this sick game Bracken is playing. "We'll just get through tonight."

But Castle can't ignore the tight, hot knot of nausea in the pit of his gut. It's not just getting through tonight. They're going to have to do something or it will never stop.

He's going to have to do something.

* * *

Some moron in a tux is blathering on and on about the trip to the St Regis Aspen Resort that he's donated. Bracken keeps up a series of intermittent head bobs and polite sips of his second Manhattan, staying focused on the man's face but paying more attention to the peripheries, the swirls of sedate colors just behind the man's shoulders.

It's an odd mix, tonight, the handful of state politicians who wanted to attach their name to the event, the ultra-rich who have come to drink and bid and generally observe the spectacle of an appallingly last-minute charity event, the clusters of police officers, a couple of them dressed smartly but most of them in last year's knockoffs, bristling uncomfortably at the edges of the crowd.

"I even added the butler service, because the last time we were there the wife would _not _stop going on about how Carl was beyond indispensible…" the man continues.

Bracken's just about to execute one of the various exit strategies he's concocted in the previous ten minutes when Kallahan _finally_ decides to rescue him. "So sorry," campaign manager murmurs, and then it's a flurry of shaking hands and promises of future donations and they're striding purposefully away from the bar.

"Took you long enough," Bracken growls under his breath as they skirt around the dance floor.

"Look, much as we would both love it, I can't be the only one pulling for donations here," Kallahan says quietly in his ever-amiable tone.

Bracken's about to snap something back when he catches the lines of her profile – the sleek curves of the low-cut black dress, the sharp arc of her collarbone, the tendrils of hair falling artfully from her bun, the sweep of her jawbone. She has her writer with her, standing a polite two feet from the tantalizing bare stretch of her arm (wouldn't do to tip the old boys at 1PP to the even more unconventional nature of their relationship, he supposes). Her eyes are intent, focused on the face of the Hispanic detective who's just walked up to her, and though there's a brittle kind of quality to her smile it's still more genuine than the plastered expressions on the countless women who were driven here in the back of a limo. Her writer's not doing as well with his poise: his gaze flicks sharply around the room, the clench of his jaw visible from even this distance.

A softly-cleared throat draws his attention back to his campaign manager. "I hope you weren't this inattentive with Sampson. The man clears twenty mill a year and is a big enough fan of yours."

Bracken narrows his eyes. "With the tax breaks I'm pushing for he better be a fan regardless of my level of attention. The point of this thing –" he gestures subtly at the room with his Manhattan – "is to build a bigger base and get my name out there, and you're letting me get trapped in endless conversations with donors instead of setting up some photo ops with New York's finest."

"Name's nothing without the money to back it," Kallahan murmurs, but even as he does he's inclining his head in agreement. "You want me to see what I can get together after the auction?"

"I'm not looking for elaborate staging. I just think it would be nice if I were seen actually mingling with the people I'm supposedly here to support," he says, injecting just enough ice into his tone to let Kallahan know they're done volleying, then walking purposefully toward the elegant sweep of her dark dress.

The writer sees him first. Bracken's close enough to see the man's chest stutter halfway through an inhale, to see his arm lift and reach out toward Beckett before he realizes he's standing purposefully too far from her. By the time the writer's finished shuffling subtly closer to her, Bracken's reached them. He stops a polite several feet away, likes the distance for the professionalism it implies, for the way it lets him see the just-too-fast rise and fall of her ribcage, the press of her chest into the fabric with her every stressed inhale.

"Detective Beckett," he murmurs, purposefully excluding the writer. He takes one step forward, reaches for her hand before she quite understands what he's doing, starts to lift it towards his lips. Her fingers tense to jerk away, but right as she does there's the flash of a camera bulb at them, then another, and all she can do is stand there rigidly as he lifts her fingers and brushes his lips along the soft and warm skin of her third knuckle. He keeps his gaze on her and only her, on the crackling, electric fury of her eyes, the desperate tension of her jaw, the angle of her chin that assures him she won't betray any emotion more than this. "I'm delighted to see you here." He lowers her hand, gently, and she draws back with a calculated and measured deliberation.

"I fucking bet you are," the writer growls, and apparently 1PP be damned, because the man is practically on top of her by now, rigid with a far more tenuous grasp on his control than his detective.

Her eyes flick to her partner, a sharp kind of warning in them, but he doesn't step away from her. "Sorry if I can't return the sentiment," she says, and though her eyes are bright with anger her voice is cold and steady.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he says, unable to stop the smile that he can feel quirking up his lips, unable to stop the fizz of tingling pleasure in his blood at the sight of just how tightly wound her control is. "That's quite a - bold - choice of dress." He lets his eyes drop briefly to her sternum (just a little left of center, he knows from the medical reports), not long enough that any of the cameras are likely to catch it, and then the writer is growling something incoherent and jerking forward and Beckett is reaching out and grabbing his arm and turning them away.

"It was lovely to see you, Senator," she says, her voice as steady as ever as she pivots, her writer breathing jaggedly beside her.

* * *

"I'm done. This is over," she grits out. Castle is still looking at her with a combination of fury and bewilderment, like he can't figure out what the hell to respond to first.

She pushes open the lobby door, her chest so tight it's nearly impossible to breathe, and her scar burning under the black material of her dress.

"Kate?"

"I want to burn this dress when we get home," she grits out. "I want it off." And she wants Castle, and _hard_, and she's even more pissed at that because she doesn't know what it means - that she's furious and sickened and also turned on.

She doesn't want to think about what it means.

"I thought you said we couldn't leave?"

"Are you seriously arguing with me over this?" Kate hisses at him, shoving on his shoulder to bend him into the limo. Sheer force of will alone would have them immediately transported to his loft. Where she can rip this dress off, where she can shove Castle onto the bed and have only him looking at her like that, only him-

But the universe isn't on their side tonight.

"Detective?"

Oh, hell.

"Are you leaving so soon?"

She turns and the flare of her skirt hides Castle inside the limo, but that's not a guarantee that Captain Gates hasn't already seen him.

What was the woman even _doing_ out here - taking a smoke break?

"Sir," she starts, but so totally at a loss for words that nothing at all comes to mind.

And then the Captain's husband pops out of a taxi, unfolding like an origami man from the back seat, coming up to kiss his wife and take her by the elbow, breathing apologies for his lateness and the weather and making her wait.

Kate shifts closer to the car, feels Castle's fingers low at her back, a tug on her dress, but she can't escape.

Captain Gates gestures for her husband to go on inside and she takes another step towards Beckett, folding her hands before her and placing one foot in front of the other, precisely, evenly, measured, as she advances.

Kate is screwed.

"Is. . .your civilian consultant sick? And you need to take him home?"

She knows. Gates knows.

Kate swallows hard. "Yes, sir." She doesn't offer more, she _can't_, everything is impossible, the whole situation.

Gates is regarding her with such calculation and certainty that it can't be anything else but knowledge. Her captain folds her arms across her chest, and even in the stunning dress she's wearing, she has all the look of a principal about to rain down hellfire and brimstone on a delinquent student.

This is it.

Kate's heart sinks. The burning starts in her throat and moves up to her eyes, and she blinks hard to keep it back. She can practically feel Castle holding his breath behind her, the open door of the limo doing its best to prop Kate upright, but this is it.

Everything ends here.

"The both of you will report to me Monday morning," Captain Gates intones. "In sickness or health."

And then she levels Beckett with a scalding look and turns on her heel to go back inside the charity auction.

Kate wilts, her hand coming up to cover her eyes.

Too much. It's all too much.

Suddenly Castle is pushing out of the limo and standing at her back, turning her around, closing his arms around her in an embrace that squeezes out everything else.

She presses her face to his neck and tries to breathe.


	6. Chapter 6

**So One Man**

* * *

They need to be at home. They need to be home right now.

Castle doesn't know what to do.

The limo speeds through the night, the lights of the city flickering past the windows, casting ever-shifting shadows over the seats, the floor. Across Kate, silent and still in his arms.

It's too much.

Castle tries to lie to himself that Gates might not know about them, and that if she does she won't care.

About Bracken Castle can't think at all, and his rage is like a living thing, hot and tight, coiled in the pit of his gut.

For what feels like forever Kate says nothing, her face buried in his shoulder, her breath hard and fast against his throat. Castle clenches his hands in the back of her hateful dress and holds her locked against him, too tightly, as if he can keep her from falling apart with his physical strength alone.

"It will be okay," he finally ventures, somehow holding her even tighter, the inanity of his words betraying his desperation, his frantic need to fix this.

Kate stills, her breath suspended, and for a moment there is only her heartbeat, a frenetic thump he swears he can feel against his own. Then she jerks, her ribs and chest convulsing, pulling in air with a hitch and a gasp as the tears finally start.

"It won't," she says, and Castle is left with no words, nothing but impotent fury coating his mouth, bitter and sharp, helpless to do anything but hold her while she cries.

* * *

Kate's on him as soon as he shuts the front door, untucking his shirt, pulling off his tie. His mind blanks as her hot fingers slide across his abdomen, move down the front of his pants, and for a moment his only thought is getting his clothes off as fast as possible.

Until he cups her face and feels the wet tracks along her cheeks. Until he realizes that she's still crying, and he scrambles to stop as something thick and viscous turns in his stomach.

"Kate." Castle grasps her by the elbows and holds her inches away so her body isn't aligned with his, clouding his judgment, making it impossible to think. "_You're crying_. Slow down, we should – "

"No." She furiously dashes the tears from her cheeks as she shakes her head, her movements sharp and angular. "I don't want to talk."

Her voice is hard and jagged, at odds with the tears still spilling from her eyes. She pulls her arms out of his hold and crowds against him again, her hands everywhere, her mouth hot and wet along his throat.

Everything in him is instinctively surging toward her. It's almost impossible not to respond, but he pulls back, his fingers cupping the curve of her neck, his thumb splayed along her collar bone. He pushes her hair back with his other hand, trying to thumb away her tears. "_Stop"._

"No." Kate grits out, something running across her face, a dark and vulnerable need. "Please don't make me talk about it, please, just –" She stops and closes her eyes, clenches her fists.

When she opens them again there's something new, something Castle's not sure he's ever seen, and he's almost knocked over by the waves of reckless heat he feels from her.

"Did you see the way he was looking at me?" Her gaze is unwavering but her words are frayed along the edges. "Did you see where?"

Kate wraps her fingers around his and slides his hand from her neck to the middle of her chest, his palm flat between her breasts, her skin hot and smooth except for the hard ridge of scar tissue pulsing against the base of his thumb with every beat of her heart.

Castle swallows hard as a burning sensation flares from the pit of his stomach, tightening his lungs, searing the back of his throat. He remembers the sick smile on Bracken's face as the senator dropped his eyes to Kate's chest, proving that he knows exactly what lies there, just left of center. That it excites him, like he's proud of what he did to Kate, of what he wants to do, and Castle _can't fucking stand it._

"He can't….I _hate_ him." Kate stumbles over the words before a half-swallowed sob cuts her off, and Castle's tenuous control snaps. The anger in his gut explodes in a convergence of possessiveness and protectiveness and violent tenderness, and Kate is under him on the couch before he even knows he's moved.

Kate already has his shirt off. One hand is buried in his hair, the other pushing his pants over his hips, and she is kissing him so hard it borders on pleasure-pain. The idea that they should talk about this, try and find an answer, gets shoved to the back of his mind, behind the mess of frantic rage and fear and love that's tangling into chaotic lust, almost overcome by the desperate need for hard, physical reassurance that they haven't been separated, that they are still okay.

And then Castle remembers Bracken touching her, how he touched Kate's hand _with his mouth_, and the last doubt is burned up in a frenzy of need.

"Castle, _please_," Kate pants in his ear, like he's not going fast enough, like he might deny her anything. There's a frantic energy running from her to him and back again, at every point of contact, and Castle can't get close enough. Her dress – that damned, fucking dress - has slipped down and he tries to pull it off, but the zipper sticks, _of course the fucking zipper sticks_, and something else in him snaps. His vision fritzes and goes white at the edges and he's breathing hard as he yanks Kate up against him, the long dress bunched and tangled around her waist, her naked thighs bracketing his hips, her bare breasts pressed to his chest.

Castle can hear his own pulse in his ears – _mine, mine_ - as he reaches behind her, sinks his hands into the material and pulls, the sound of ripping fabric satisfying something primitive and harsh within him.

Kate shimmies and twists and the ruined dress is on the floor. "_Yes_," is all she says, her teeth grazing his shoulder. He's so hard it almost hurts, and her hips are urging against his, fast and rough, undulations that stop his breath.

"I love you," he whispers hard against her hair, his fingers bruising her hip, her back. "I love you." And then they don't talk anymore.

* * *

Kate wakes to the jostling of her body and finds him looming over her in the darkness. Her heart gives a hard start but it's just Castle trying to pull her to her feet.

"Bed," he rasps, something twisted in his voice that brings her completely awake, and remembering.

She shivers and takes the robe he holds out, slides her arms into it gratefully, sees he's already gotten his. How long has he been up? Or did he ever fall asleep? She can't tell, but she hooks her finger into the terrycloth belt loop and they shamble down the hall to his bedroom, sort of attached.

He crowds her into bed, crawls over her, his hand sliding inside her robe and curling at her ribs, her hip, his body flush with hers. He can't seem to settle, and she won't be falling asleep any time soon, but she lies on her back with him restless and wandering at her side, and she fights the defeated feel of this whole thing.

She's _never_ defeated.

She has to report to Gates on Monday morning.

Kate lifts her hand and presses it against her eyes, taking hard breaths in, making the effort to push against Castle's weight on her chest to get her lungs to expand. He backs off, his arm stiff and the muscle knotted under her neck, so she rolls onto her side to look at him, her own hand fisting in the lapel of his robe.

"I had a thought," he says suddenly, the gravel in his voice from the late hour or her falling apart and crying or the way she made him shout her name. None of it makes her very proud.

She pushes against his sternum to get him talking, even though she doesn't really want to know. Does she? What he was thinking about, awake in the deepest part of the night.

"We can't let this go on," he says finally. He's so quiet, so still, his voice so _certain_.

She studies him silently. There's nothing to say to that. Of course it can't go on. But it will. They know that too.

He growls out his next breath and his hand comes between them, rubs down his face as if that might help. She hopes it does - nothing has worked for her so far. She's given up on talking and she wants her brain to shut off, but his hand comes to grip her arm instead, holding her too tightly.

His fingers are bruising, his face desperate. She shrugs a shoulder to break his hold, but she can't. She can't break his hold.

When did _that_ happen?

The scales fall from her eyes: how thick his fingers are, how his hand encompasses her arm and wraps all the way around, crushing her bicep in his grip. How his bent elbow gives over to the hard bulge of muscle and the roped strands of sinew that lash his bones together. His chest is no longer her charitable term 'toned' but has broadened and deepened with a strength that makes her mouth dry.

And somehow she's missed it.

He's been. . .he's so. . .because of this. Because of that day on their knees at the construction site.

She reaches out, feels her own arm's movements echoed back to her in the tight grip of his hand, and she strokes her fingers over his pec to feel the bunch and quiver of his skin. The movement of his body toward her is pure force, no trace of the softer layers, the happy man who can spot name brand silk boxers and gets excited over ghosts and original moulding. This is something different, something harder - a man who can crush without flinching.

She's not sure she likes it.

"Kate," he says harshly. Her eyes startle up to his and his mouth is a slash in the dark shadows of his face. "Kate, I won't do this without you - I've tried that before, and it doesn't work out so well for me."

"What?" she blurts out, realizing too late that he's been talking, he's been trying to tell her something and she's been distracted by his muscle. Like a stupid _girl._

"We need to go on the offensive," he says, and it sounds rehearsed. A long night's worth of planning his speech to the letter. "We need to get this son of a bitch. It's time to go after him with everything we've got."

She blinks slowly and then sits up, lifting a hand to her hair and scraping it back, her mind spinning. "Go after him."

"It's the only option. We hunt him down. We ferret out every last sordid detail of his crimes and we go public with it - very public, very fast. He's put a gun to our heads, Kate. More than just that night."

She's shaking her head before he even finishes. "No. No, that - your daughter."

There's only a heartbeat of silence, like an acknowledgement, but he sits up beside her and pulls a knee up, his arm hooked around it, his other hand coming out to take hers.

"I know," he says quietly. "But she's already. . .it's already done. Everyone's lives are at his whim, Kate. He's proved that. Might as well meet it head on."

It can't be up to her. It can't be a thing she chooses - the fatal end. She walked _away_ from that. She came to _him_.

Maybe he's the only one to lead her back there. Maybe that's the only way it's right. If she and Castle do this together.

She glances over at him, the solemn and heavy set of his eyes, and flicks a finger in his hand, skirts his wrist to skim up his forearm and to his bicep.

"When did this start?" she murmurs quietly, pressing her thumb to his collarbone and that shifting muscle, hard tendon, cords of fierce power waiting to be unleashed.

"After," he says back quietly.

"Why? Exactly."

"I was too easy a mark. They got me first so that you'd come quietly."

Because she follows him where he goes. Is that it? And now, in this too? Is that how they work?

"There will be no weak side this time," he says gruffly, distress coating his voice. "No chance to get you. I promise. I promise, Kate-"

She shakes her head to make him shut up, her fingers gripping his neck now and her body unfolding to his. She wraps herself around him and presses her cheek to his and tries not to let that be true. It can't be true. He isn't her weak side.

"Okay," she gets out, breathing hard to push past the urge to cry. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"We go after him," she gives, and just saying the words straightens her spine and brings her head up. She strokes her fingers on the taut ridge of his body, _he did it for her_, and she nods. "We go hard."

His face splits into a grin, but there's still that shining hesitance at the back of his eyes. "So on Monday. . .you want to tell her or should I?"

Her mind goes blank.

"I could start the story, but it would probably sound less like a twisted fantasy if it came from you," he goes on.

"Wait. Hold on. What?"

"Only way to do this right. We tell Gates what he's done. We have to."

She jerks her arms into her chest and stares at him, but already she sees it, all the opportunities opening up, all the ways this can actually _work_ for them.

On Monday morning, if Bracken is their lead, then what does it matter why Kate was shoving Castle into a limo and leaving the charity ball early?

"Oh," she breathes out.

His grin has returned, a slow thing that doesn't dispel the image of Castle's dominating bulk, despite the sense of happiness she's getting from the so-blue of his eyes.

"We're going after him," he says decidedly. "We're taking him down."

* * *

"Correlation doesn't imply causation," Caviato says for the third time that week.

"You're repeating yourself," Bracken says coldly, choking back the snarl he so desperately wants to let out.

Caviato stares, holding eye contact for a heartbeat too long before glancing away. "Just saying. This isn't the first time you've insisted on stepping up security a – considerable – degree after your campaign's gained momentum."

"The fact that we're _finally _struggling back from that damn failed bill has absolutely nothing to do with that detective and her writer."

"You're living on a thirteen-mile long, two-mile wide island," Caviato says. "Seeing them three times in two weeks is hardly –" He cuts himself off abruptly, seeming to realize that he's crossed several lines.

"It's uncanny," Bracken says, injecting sufficient steel into his tone. Caviato's eyes stay trained at a vague point on the wall in front of him.

The first time, he'd caught them out of the corner of his eye as his car paused at the corner of Madison and Broadway. The writer was touching the elbow of her tailored navy jacket, and her phone was plastered to her ear, her face thoughtful and turned directly toward him. Though he could have sworn her gaze never fixed on him, it had still sent a rush of warmth through his blood. He'd thought about asking the car to stop, about stepping out and walking over and greeting them casually, replacing the writer's fingers with his own on her arm, but the light had turned and the car had pulled away before he'd gotten the words out.

The second time, they'd walked into Delmonico's right as he was finishing his porterhouse and polishing off an excellent bottle of cabernet with a potential donor from Texas. The detective had been wearing a dress that had seemed demure enough in the front but that plunged scandalously in the back, showing off the tensile strength of her shoulders, the delicate arches of each vertebra. He'd nearly excused himself to go over to them, to see the uncontrolled rage flare in the writer's eyes and the frosty hatred ice itself into her irises, but something stopped him, more than just the donor's endless prattling. Twice he'd seen them, twice on terms that were not his own, and he was not entirely comfortable with the circumstances.

The third time prompted his meeting with Caviato, though he couldn't have been sure it was them. He'd been walking up from the financial district, and a block away he'd just barely caught the curl of her hair, the line of her arm, the shadowed edge of her jawbone, before she'd turned a corner and been lost to him.

"Want me to bring 'em in again?" Caviato sighs, resigned to it. "It'll get noticed, probably sooner than later, but they both have enough enemies that we'll be able to stay under the radar."

"No," Bracken says, forcing his weight behind the word. He is not thinking about her, alone with him in a room full of shadows, her hands bound behind her back and helplessness bleeding from her eyes as he –

"Just tell me what our plan is," Caviato says, back on track.

Bracken lets the silence settle over the room, drumming his fingers slowly over his thigh, before he finally speaks. "We need a more subtle approach."


	7. Chapter 7

**So One Man**

* * *

When they finally get into her apartment, Kate drops her keys and laptop, the files and the report from the private investigator, just leaves it all in the entry. Behind her, Castle gives that frustrated sigh she's so tired of hearing, and she ignores it and sheds her shoes as she goes.

"No, don't worry. I got it," he says a little too acidic for her liking, but she's on a roll with this ignoring thing and she heads resolutely to her bedroom as he picks up after her.

They haven't been back to her apartment since... since two weeks ago? Maybe longer. Pit-stops and coming back for clothes and not much else.

"I'll get us some dinner," he calls out, an apology for snapping at her.

She half turns in the threshold of her bedroom, sees him across the space - too much space between them lately, stressed and overworked and _scared_ despite the determination. "I don't think I've got anything edible," she murmurs back, an offering in and of itself.

He gives her apartment a swift look and nods, accepting it. "I'll poke around; see what I can find."

"You're good at that," she says softly now, giving him a tired smile even as she fumbles with the buttons of her shirt.

"Good at that too," he says back, coming towards her with his hands out. He takes over at her buttons and slips them free slowly, his eyes on hers and hers staring back, the connection and the promise and the support. He leans in and presses his mouth to her collarbone; her breath catches and her hand comes to his neck, her bones dissolving.

"Castle," she murmurs, closing her eyes because the sight of him bent over her makes her want things. "I miss you."

"I'm here," he says against her neck, his lips brushing, the back of his fingers against her stomach and spreading to encompass her waist. "I haven't left."

But he has. They both have. Months of treating his loft like ground zero for their investigation, looking over their shoulders every time they step outside, the computers and the gear and his contacts and the boys coming over and the all-nighters and she can't remember when they last stopped and loved each other - just because they could.

His fingers tighten on her hips. "Take a bath. I'll find us some dinner."

They don't have time for that. It's just a quick stop to pick up essentials, water her plants, get back to his loft. They have to monitor the-

"Kate, you can-"

"No," she sighs. "I'll shower."

"You don't have to do this."

But she does. "It's faster," she says grimly, turns away from him.

* * *

When the water finally heats enough, Kate steps into the shower and stands under it, lets it slide over her skin, wash out everything. The responsibility remains though, clings like a skin that won't molt so she's left scratching at it, digging her nails into raw flesh in the attempt to slough it off.

Maybe they need to take the time to be together, just for an hour. Just be tender and soft and remember why they're doing this, remember the life they'd been creating before they got yanked off a street and were forced to their knees at an abandoned construction site.

She sighs out and opens her eyes, suddenly feels the cool air swirl around her ankles as Castle opens the bathroom door.

She smiles to herself - great minds think alike - and turns to the shower curtain even as he throws it open.

But his face is white, pinched, and _panic_ in every line of his body.

"Castle?" she whispers, reaching for him.

"They - I - there's. . ."

"Castle," she says sharply. "What happened?"

He jumps into the tub with her, crowding her back, her startled reflexes kicking in so that she grabs him even as the shower dumps hot water all over her face. His fingers are bruising her as he clutches.

"I found - bugs. In your apartment. He's bugged your apartment, Kate."

* * *

For several long seconds Kate just stares at him, her eyes almost comically large in her beautiful face. Hot water is pounding on his shoulders, stinging his eyes, but Castle barely notices. The undercurrent of banal irritation from earlier has completely evaporated in the heat of his panic.

Panic, and sudden lust as it dawns on him that he is slowly getting soaked to the skin through his clothes, while Kate stands before him, naked and wet. But no, _focus_.

Suddenly Kate jerks against him, her hand on his belt, pulling him enough off balance that the soles of his shoes slip on the wet shower floor.

"What?" She's on her tiptoes, her lips against his ear, and his hands instinctively move to her waist to steady them both. Her naked, wet waist.

He swallows hard. "Bugs. A listening device. Here. " Castle realizes he's hissing through gritted teeth, like he's afraid someone is going to read his lips. His hair stands up on his arms and neck, because holy shit, what if it's not just audio recording equipment? What if there are cameras?

He looks around frantically, like he's going to find a recording device in the shower head. Ridiculous, but it's Bracken. If the psycho senator was going to employ video surveillance in Kate's apartment, it would totally be in the shower, the fucker.

Kate's fingers tighten at his waistband, and somehow he can feel the heat of her hand even through his wet clothes. "Where is it?"

"I didn't bring it with –"

Kate shakes her head impatiently, her wet hair sliding long his throat. "No, where did you _find_ it?"

"Oh." Castle moves to push the water out his eyes, his fingers grazing the side of her breast, the contact sending a thrill up his arm that somehow ends up as ache in the pit of his stomach. God, it's been so damn long, and she's wet and naked and _shit_, the _bug_, and he seriously hates Bracken more than like, Hitler.

His initial panic rushes back, and chokes a little on the words. "Kate. It was under your bed."

Kate drops down to her heels with a thump, and he can feel the sudden expansion of her ribs as she gasps. Her hand flutters to her mouth, her pupils huge. "Okay. Okay. We can't freak out." With her other hand she's still clutching his belt so tightly her knuckles are turning white, and Castle can feel his panic settling into the familiar rage - that she has to live like this.

"Do you think he knows?" she whispers, even though there are two doors and pounding water between them and the bug. "What if he's seen us, figured out what we're doing?"

"It doesn't matter if he knows. We can't stop now, we – " Castle stops and tries to breathe, to think. "No, Bracken doesn't know. If he did he wouldn't wait, we'd be dead in some warehouse by now." Kate flinches, a sharp shiver he feels along the length of his body, and damn it, they are not going to let this get to them. "It's just a coincidence, Kate. He doesn't know _anything_, that's why he set the bugs. He's got nothing."

Kate's shaking her head again, her body nestled against his. "This is so dangerous. Not just for us. Alexis, your mom… maybe we should cool it for a while, we should – "

"No. Kate." Castle wraps his arms around her and tries to ignore the burning arousal in his gut. "It's dangerous no matter what. We have to finish this, together. And hey," Castle waggles his eyebrows at her, desperate to banish that hollow look behind her eyes, " I guess this means you just have to stay at the loft indefinitely. With me."

Kate's shoulders drop but her eyebrows remain knotted. "Wait. If you don't think Bracken knows we're investigating him, why were you looking for bugs?"

Castle slips his hand along her neck, pushing back her hair. "I wasn't looking, I just found it."

"Under my bed? What were you looking for under my bed?"

"My underwear."

Kate leans back, a laugh startled out of her. "Your what?"

"My underwear. The black silk boxers I got in Italy. I haven't seen them in a month. They're so soft and... listen, it's not important why." Castle's abruptly aware that he doesn't sound his manliest. "The important thing is there was a bug. Under your bed. Which I found. I saved us."

"You know." Kate's chewing on her lip, drops of water slipping along her mouth. "We don't _know_ it was Bracken."

"Kate. It's a recording device. Under your bed. We absolutely know it was Bracken."

"God." Kate leans forward and rests her forehead on his chest. "He's such a pervert."

And suddenly Castle wants to laugh, despite the fear and hopelessness that's worn them down for the last several months. He wants to laugh because Kate is naked and wet in his arms, and Bracken is just a fucking pervert who has to bug her bedroom to have anything of her at all.

Castle wraps an arm around her waist, content to simply hold her for a moment, but all at once Kate's a flurry of movement, gasping as she slips his leg between hers. She's got half the buttons on his shirt undone before he's even realized she's started.

"Wait. What are you doing?"

Now Kate's pulling his half unbuttoned shirt over his head, the wet sleeves sticking to his arms and _ohhh. Yes.  
_  
"What do you think we're doing? We're in the shower together." She throws his shirt over the edge and starts on his belt. "You're way overdressed."

Kate smiles at him through her wet lashes and pops the button on his pants. She starts to tug on his zipper but pauses, her fingers so close that he can't himself from canting into her hand.

"Hey." Her lips are twitching a little, her thumb swirling in a slow circle. "Did you find them?"

Castle blinks hard to get the water out of his eyes. Kate's hand is stroking right at the junction of his thigh and his brain is about two seconds from fritzing out completely.

"What?"

"Your special underpants. Were they under the bed?"

"Silk imported boxers, Kate. Could you not call them underpants? That's not very sexy. And no, they weren't there."

"They weren't?" Kate fixes him with a look of mock disapproval but he can tell she's trying not to laugh. "Where exactly did you leave them, then? Should I be concerned?"

"You're hilarious," Castle mutters into her neck, his lips trailing along the soft skin under her jaw. "Bracken probably took them. For DNA samples, or for evidence in some sort of set-up. Remember this when he tries to woo you into his arms after he makes it look like I'm having an affair, leaving my incredibly expensive and comfortable boxers all over town."

Kate pulls back and cocks an eyebrow at him while she resumes work on his zipper. "When that happens I will totally remember not to go clinically insane, which is the only way I could be 'wooed' by Bracken." Kate shoves his pants off his hips, pulls them down his calves with her toes, her evil smile back. "But what if we're wrong and he's actually fixated on you?"

Castle kicks his pants to the corner, reaches for her hip. "I really don't think that's it."

"We don't know." Kate leans lightly against him, barely touching, driving him _crazy_. "Bracken's probably keeping your boxers under his pillow. He strokes them to soothe himself to sleep."

"Oh my God. Gross. Why would you say that? Why?" Castle makes a gagging noise, but something hard in the center of his chest loosens at the humor, at making Bracken ridiculous. He pulls his hands back. "I don't know if I can even do this now, that's so gross."

"I'll bet you can." Kate slips her hands into his ordinary cotton boxers, and his eyes flutter shut as he instinctively reaches for her hips and pulls her flush against him.

"I _guess _we can do it in the shower." Castle's striving for light and offhand, but her wet body and clever hands have left him breathless. "If you really want to."

"I do," Kate murmurs. "I really, really want to. And it's not like we can use the bed."

"Good point," Castle answers, and his last coherent thought before he lifts Kate by the back of her thighs and presses her against the wet tile is the fierce satisfaction that they haven't let Bracken ruin _this_.

* * *

The Senator from New York doesn't realize how much he has come to depend on the bugs until they go quiet.

He lets it go for a week before he brings it up. A week in which he distracts himself with increasingly expensive whiskey and late-afternoon phone calls to push his revamped environmental bill, a week in which he drinks three times as much coffee and sleeps in restless twenty-minute spurts, a week in which he almost considers calling Salina no less than four times. The last time he tries and fails to get anything useful off the recordings, he forces himself to wait the three hours until the sky is shot through with light, until he can call Caviato in without it being immediately apparent what he was thinking about at four in the morning.

The man stands in the doorway of the sleek office with a too-knowing look on his face. Bracken should really switch him out – arrange for him to get into a convenient accident, or, he supposes, funnel through a deep enough payoff to have him satisfied somewhere far enough to be out of the way but close enough that he is on-hand should he be necessary.

But Bracken's become dependent. That's what angers him the most. The dependency on Caviato, on the bugs, on his connection to that damn detective that he can too often feel hovering at the edges of his awareness.

"Feed's good," Caviato says. "I had my guys triple check it. I can put a tail on her if you want confirmation, but my guess is she's been at the writer's."

Bracken waves his hand in an absent dismissal, then changes his mind. "Maybe for a day."

"Done," Caviato says. He hasn't questioned anything, not since the day he implied Bracken's frequent sightings were nothing more than coincidences. But it was Caviato who planted the listening device under the bed in her apartment, and that knowledge lurks in the back of the man's eyes.

"You think –" Bracken starts before violently slamming his mouth shut. He does not ask his subordinates questions, and he _absolutely_ does not ask them questions about their _thoughts._

"Feed would be down if she'd found it," Caviato says easily.

"Just want to make sure we don't let it slide under the radar," Bracken replies. "What's today look like? Can we push the meeting with Melba to just before my flight back to DC?"

Caviato responds with a complex chain of resulting reactions to that schedule change, and Bracken follows halfheartedly, the list of obligations endless and frustrating.

Always at the edges of his consciousness is the thought of the recordings. The soft, husky rasp of her words when she wakes in the morning. The commanding snap of her name when she answers the phone in the dead of night. The split second of silence that comes after their quiet whispers and the shuffle of her sheets and their pants of air and just before her voice suddenly breaks over the _a _of her writer's name.

"Anything else?" Caviato asks, wrapping up, and if he can tell that Bracken's been completely unfocused throughout the conversation he doesn't let on.

Bracken resists the urge to rub his hand along his forehead. "No." He pauses, a sense of purpose and desire crackling just beneath his skin, the same feeling he gets just before stepping up to a podium for a speech that he knows will make the room thunder with applause. "But soon."


	8. Chapter 8

**So One Man**

* * *

The RSVP reminder arrives the same as every year, a heavy eggshell card announcing Nandazi's $5k a head fundraiser at the Omni Shoreham. He blows out a breath, glaring at the thing. Kallahan's been getting more aggressive with the Senator's campaign lately, and his most recent angle has been for Bracken to appear less aloof. "You don't go to enough events, and when you do you're always alone," the campaign manager had said. "Can you at least seem like you have some actual human connections?"

He thinks back to the warehouse, the desperate and furious warmth of her cheek beneath the black hood he'd pulled down slowly over her head. To the book signing, the furious clench of her jaw and the brief flare of fear in her eyes. To the charity auction, the electric jerk of her hand beneath his lips before she clamped down on it, sheathed herself in that intractable, alluring armor.

He's perfectly capable of human connections.

**x**

After four days in which he unsurprisingly doesn't hear a word, he puts a call in to Caviato. Five hours later, he's staring at a picture of a redhead, ensconced in a plush purple robe, brushing her teeth in a Columbia dorm room.

He sighs as his eyes flick detachedly over the hi-def photo. It's an inconvenience. An annoyance, that the detective does not understand – that she _still_ does not understand after everything - what an invitation from him means for her now.

_I could invite her instead_, he scrawls on the back of the picture. He drops it alone into a catalog envelope, doesn't do her the injustice of patronizing her with any information other than his return address, and slides it into his outtake tray.

Two hours later, he's wrangled a hesitant promise of support for his new bill from Senator Warren, hammered out the final details of a 12-hour whirlwind trip through Albany, and RSVPed for two to Nandazi's fundraiser.

She may not have understood before, but she'll get the message now.

* * *

"Hey, I picked up your mail," Castle tells her. "It's on my kitchen counter."

Kate shifts on his lap, grinning down at him, surprised by his random thought. "Okay. More important things going on here, Castle."

"Well, yeah. But it just popped in my head," he shrugs, his movement bringing his hands up with his shoulders so that his fingers ruck up her shirt.

She takes a deeper breath to feel his palms at her rib cage, encompassing her, the splay of his fingers matching the hollow places between her bones, and she leans in over him to let her hair brush his cheeks, tickle his neck.

He lifts his chin for her kiss, angling their mouths just right, but she holds back, lets the anticipation build.

"Why'd my mail pop into your head?"

He grunts in displeasure, his fingers tightening, eyes narrowing. He's all focused now, concentrating on her, and she likes teasing him almost as much as she likes having him.

Almost.

"Castle," she breathes out, letting the enunciation of his name brush her lips against his.

He's suddenly breathing hard, shallow, his hips rising up a little at her every touch.

"Castle, my mail?"

"You feel so good," he chokes out, a hand coming up to the back of her head and pulling her the last millimeter into his mouth. His kiss is intense, wild, like it's been for the last few weeks between them. Like they have something precious to lose.

She doesn't want to think about that. She wants to have him begging her; she wants to be tied up with him dark and amused over her; she wants it a little rough so that she can forget.

And that's when he gentles, when his hands stroke instead of squeeze, when his mouth breaks from hers and their foreheads rest together, and his breath slows at her cheek, his growl shifting into a hum.

"You feel so good here. In my loft with me. All the time. I want you here."

She drags a kiss across his jaw, loving the tone of his statement even as she fights hard to ignore the meaning. His tone tells her how he wants to claim, own, possess. She's up for that tonight; she could use some unraveling of her tightly wound self-control.

His teeth nip at her lips. "I picked up your mail because I didn't want you to have an excuse to go back there. Not even for a second. Never go back there, Kate."

He rarely tells her what to do. Bracken has rattled him, she knows. "Because of the bugs-"

"No," he rasps, tightening his grip on her again, so tight. Brutal now that his body has sharpened into leanness and muscle. She likes it.

"No?"

"Not because of that, him. Because of me. Because I want you here."

Oh.

Her words are gone. Gone. She has nothing. Nothing good to say in the face of his childish seriousness.

She presses her mouth to his cheek. "I want you too."

But it's not enough, and they both know it, and his hands still at her sides, thumbs barely touching her breasts, and then he sighs and drags his palms down to her hips. Chaste.

"Mail's on the kitchen counter," he says again.

She swallows it down but gets off his lap, curls her fingers at his neck for a moment because he's got to recover and it's her fault, but she doesn't know how to think about long-term when they're in the middle of this.

Long-term is an illusion and they can't afford to pretend. Too dangerous, too much at stake.

Too precious.

Kate walks over to the bar stool and slides onto it, reaches for the mail even though she's not really seeing it. She sifts out the essential pieces - scant really, a couple of bills that she could drop completely if she never went back. She can hear him get up off the couch and at least he's making his way towards her, not giving up.

At least she can count on his persistence, annoying as it used to be, can still be. He won't give up on her.

Kate picks out the curled up 8.5x11 manila envelope, frowns at the neat and precise lettering of her address on the front. No name on the return address, but it registers vaguely, somewhere. And the handwriting. Familiar. She's seen it recently. There was something...

That invitation.

She threw it away.

A prickling at her neck has her short of breath, but she sticks a finger under one flap and begins to pry it loose. She jerks when she gets a papercut, pushing the tender skin into her mouth and letting her saliva dull the sting.

She threw the invitation away and didn't even _tell_ him. And now. And now.

Kate rips open the envelope even though she's almost certain that the dread in her stomach is an instinct of knowledge. She knows. She knows what comes next.

Castle's hand drops on her shoulder, a forgiveness she barely registers, and then she's withdrawing a single glossy from the envelope and their world is burning down around them.

"Oh, God," he moans.

Her hands shake and the light from the kitchen glows behind Alexis's pink cheeks, the toothbrush in her mouth and the purple of her robe and Kate can see the words on the back of the photo.

Castle is the one who reaches out and flips it over. His hand crunches the photo as they read:

_I could invite her instead._

And then Castle explodes.

* * *

"How the fuck_, how the fuck_ does he have this?" His voice is loud and hard and seems to be coming from someone else. The crumpled edges of the photograph are digging into his palm, but Castle can still see Alexis in her girlish purple robe, oblivious and vulnerable. Fear is tearing along his nerves, making him shake.

"I'm… oh, God." Kate turns to face him, her eyes too bright, the pupils blown with shock. "I threw it away, I didn't – "

"Threw what away?" Castle's almost yelling. He's over the edge of control, frenzied adrenaline yanking his stomach inside out.

"Some sort of invitation, I don't –"

It clicks, and his chest seizes even tighter. "Invite her _instead? Instead of who?_" But Castle knows. He knows, and he's going to throw up, just as soon as he's able to breathe.

Kate swallows hard. "Bracken, it's Bracken. He wants me to go somewhere, do something…and since I didn't answer…"

"He's threatening Alexis," Castle chokes out. He locks his fingers around Kate's wrist and pivots towards the door, dragging her with him.

"Wait, where are you going?" Kate digs in her heels, clutches at his bicep.

"To get Alexis." And then to fire the security detail he has on her, since they're fucking _worthless._ Castle snatches his keys from the table and wrenches open the door. "And then we're taking this to Gates. We're exposing Bracken now."

Kate twists her arm and wraps her hand around his wrist, her nails cutting into his skin. "We can't." Her voice is too high, her words too fast. "There's not enough to nail him. He'll know we're after him, we'll have no chance, none."

"Then what are we supposed to do, Kate?" He sounds harsh, the words scraping against his throat. Angry words that aren't meant for her, but panic won't let him filter.

"I have to find the invitation, figure out what he wants – "

"No." Castle tightens his grip on her wrist, can feel her delicate bones against his fingers. "We aren't giving him what he wants." Not when what Bracken wants is everything Castle loves the most.

"I have to, this is my fault. If I'd opened it he wouldn't have –" Kate breaks off and gestures at the photo in his hand.

"You are not… _no_." The swell of rage moves through his body in a hot, nauseating wave, and the primal instinct to kill Bracken is so overwhelming Castle doesn't know what to do with it.

"None of this is your fault." His keys hit the floor with a crash as he grabs Kate's upper arms and only just stops himself from shaking her. "None of it. And you're going nowhere, doing _nothing_, with him."

"But it's me he wants." Kate grabs his wrists with both of her hands, the hitch in her voice a painful twist deep in his chest. "If I just pretend I'm giving in to him… I can't let him keep doing this to you, to Alexis."

"Stop." Castle does shake her now, desperate to make her shut up, to stop sounding like she's about to offer herself as some sort of martyred sacrifice. That would kill him; doesn't she know it would kill him?

"But it's me, it's always me." Her eyes are wild, unfocused. "I can't risk him hurting Alexis."

Castle snaps. He can actually feel the crack traveling down his body like an electric current, shocking him and grounding him at once.

"You're right," he says, abruptly calm. He can't risk Bracken hurting Alexis. And Bracken can't be allowed to indulge in this sick obsession with Kate, can't be allowed to touch her, see her, _breathe the same air _as Kate ever, ever again. This needs to end.

Castle steps back from Kate and gently pries her fingers off his arms, his whole body hot, the muscles he's honed these past few months hard and resolute with the certainty of justice.

He will make Bracken pay.

Kate tries to grab his arm as her gaze, suddenly sharp and filled with fear, snaps to his. "What are you doing?"

"I'm taking care of it." And he wrenches out of her hold and slams the door shut behind him.


	9. Chapter 9

**So One Man**

* * *

Kate stares at the slammed door and the only thing she can grasp, only thing that comes to her is _He's forgotten his keys._

Bracken, the invitation, the sick sight of Alexis in her robe-

The cry leaves her lips and startles her back to awareness; she yanks open the door knob and flies out of the loft, running for the elevator but she's already missed him. She jabs the call button, her heart pounding, racing, tripping over itself, but it'll be too slow, too late, and she flings herself towards the stairs instead.

Kate pounds down the steps, skipping one or three here and there, turning an ankle in her haste, knee twisting as she rounds the landing. Gravity pulls her hard and she buckles, but she passes the second floor door and keeps going, keeps going; she has to get to him before-

Before he-

What will he do?

Anything. He's a father who would do anything, and that scares her like nothing has. Ever. In her life.

Kate slams her shoulder into the door and bursts out into the lobby, has to scramble to keep her balance on the slick marble floor.

She forgot her shoes.

Kate grunts when she hears the click of the door and she darts forward, around the bend towards the elevator but it's open and empty. She turns towards the front door and Eduardo is still in that half-bow he has when they leave.

"Ms Beckett?" he sputters, even as she pushes out past him. "Your shoes-"

She barrels through the doors and stops dead on the sidewalk.

Castle slides into a cab.

"Castle!"

He doesn't even pause; she can hear him grit out something to the driver even as he slams the door shut and her guts twist painfully as the car slips out into traffic.

_No._

_**X**_

Her hands are shaking at the delay, but she's got to figure out where, where, what the hell he's going to do.

She shoves her feet back into her shoes and curses her phone's slowness, but how did Castle fly out of here without even _checking_?

The photo. The envelope, return address. Kate runs for the counter and slams her hip into the side, grunting with pain, but she snatches the envelope and runs back for the front door. Her shoes slap against the wood floor, heel sharp and clacking, but she doesn't take the time to adjust the fit.

She takes the stairs again, can't help the burning need to _go_, and her hand crunches tightly on the envelope. In the lobby once more, her breath catching in her lungs, she finds Eduardo has already held her a cab, the door open and waiting on her.

"Thank you," she breathes out to him, kisses his cheek as she passes. "Thank you."

"Mr Castle..."

"He's fine. He's going to be fine," she murmurs, sliding into the back seat. Eduardo shuts the door after her and she closes her eyes a moment.

But there's no time.

"Take me here," she says finally, showing the driver the envelope. "I'm a police officer. Extra if you're fast."

_**X**_

Kate untangles herself from the long line at security, shoving her shoes back onto her feet even as she heads for the directory. Distinguished offices of Senator William Bracken.

She can practically _feel _Castle close by, that fury seething in him, the deep and wounded hurt she'd seen in his eyes right before he walked out the door. She heads for the elevator - she'd lose time trying to run up fifteen flights of stairs - but the wait is excruciating.

She scrapes a hand through her hair and shuffles inside with the crowd, lets the friendly older man with the goatee push the fifteen for her. She shifts from foot to foot, the elevator filling slowly, and finally the doors close and the lift begins its ascent.

She just needs to make it. She just has to make it before Castle...

Whatever he wants to do, whatever he's got in mind, she can't protect him if he goes off. She can't save him if he-

The elevator stops and opens, third floor, and she groans to herself and tilts her head back, bouncing on the balls of her feet. _Hurry, hurry, hurry._

Fifth floor. Sixth. Seventh. People file off and now the elderly man in the goatee steps off, a sympathetic nod towards her, and she can't even find a polite smile in response.

Castle. What the hell does he think he's doing?

Finally the elevator opens onto the fifteenth floor and Kate slides out, walking quickly down the hall, searching for a sign, a suite, something to indicate the senator's offices.

She finds a broad door, ornate and imposing, a chrome plaque with the man's official title beside it, and through the wood she can already hear him.

Castle. She can _hear_ him.

Kate flings open the door and rushes inside. Castle doesn't even notice her as he's pressing forward, trying to bypass a couple of secretaries and a staffer who attempt to hold him at bay. But the same moment Kate hurries on scene, she sees Senator Bracken open up a door opposite her and step into the elegant reception area.

Bracken sees her. His smirk, the curl of amusement and self-satisfaction in his eyes is so thick, so suffocating that time breaks, stuttering to a stop. Trapped.

But then Castle, in his furious and towering rage, turns on Bracken. "You bastard." And he lunges.

Kate darts forward between them, shoving Castle back with her whole body, the team of secretaries fluttering around them, squawking imprecations and threats to call security, the staffer looking nervously to his boss, but Kate can barely keep Castle in place. It takes every ounce of effort to keep him from Bracken.

She twists until she can't see the senator, can't see the two women or the staffer, until all that fills her vision is Castle's murderous face.

"Stop, Castle. Don't. Please," she begs quietly, gripping his biceps hard. "Please, don't."

"You have _no right_," he thunders, lunging for Bracken once more, his eyes not even seeing her. "That's my daughter. My _daughter-_"

"Castle," she hisses, shoving on him hard and finally breaking the connection. Castle stumbles back, but his hands come up to grip her elbows.

"Kate," he growls down at her.

"Not this. Not now. Castle. This is not the way," she whispers fiercely. She nudges her hips into his, their bodies clashing, and his eyes drop to hers once more.

Oh God. Oh God, so much grief. She's caused him so much _hurt._

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I'm sorry. But you can't. You can't."

"Is there a problem here?" Bracken says with a snark to his voice that makes Castle stiffen.

Kate pushes back, using his own momentum to knock him off-balance, and he's driven back another step. She twists her fist in his shirt, her knuckles hard against his stomach, and his nostrils flare, his mouth opens.

"No," she says quickly, not even looking at Bracken. "No problem." She dips her forehead to Castle's chest and closes her eyes. "Please. Castle, for me. For me."

She feels his impotent rage vibrating through his chest but she nudges him back another step, finally. Another step back. And then another. Another.

"Please," she whispers, lifting her head now, imploring him with everything in her.

He's still staring at Bracken.

She refuses.

* * *

The sharp trill of his cell startles him awake, the senator's eyes snapping abruptly open to the pale light streaming through his bedroom window. He lets it ring several times, blinking at the bands of sun that streak over the undulations of his comforter, tries to remember the last time that he woke up with daylight streaking through the room.

He doesn't check the number, just reaches out blindly and accepts the call just before it would have gone to voicemail. His reaction is a hair slower than it should be and he almost misses it – he's still running off maybe three hours of sleep due to the daisy chain of delays that impacted his usually dependable shuttle from Reagan to La Guardia.

"Good morning," he says, smoothing the touches of morning roughness into a low and dependable lilt.

"Senator Bracken," he hears, her contralto bumping uncomfortably over the words. "It's –"

"Detective Beckett." He pauses for an instant, reveling in her sharply indrawn breath, letting her soak in the knowledge that he can recognize her voice from two uncomfortable words. "What a pleasure."

He realizes as he says the words that unlike the countless other calls he's made over the past few weeks, obligation after obligation, this really _is _a pleasure. He's started to push himself up, ready to move toward the bathroom, but he relaxes his arms, lets himself fall back against the pillows and close his eyes, lets the softness of the bed underneath him and the sharpness of the light around him drift slowly away, lets everything dissolve but the sound of her.

In his ear, he can hear her softly breathing.

"Yes. Well," she says, stuttering for a heartbeat over a response. "I seem to have misplaced your initial invitation."

He feels a strange stretch at his lips and cheeks, the first totally genuine smile he's produced in ages. "Misplaced, or threw away sight unseen?"

Another strangled noise, barely audible, a tiny protest at his guess that is simultaneously a confirmation. "Irrelevant," she says, her voice still slightly strained.

He tries to picture her – starts with her in bed, a delicate camisole, the strap starting to slide off one bare shoulder, highlighting the sharp line of her collarbone and the messy curl of hair that brushes against her throat. But he knows before the picture even resolves from the haze that he's wrong, that she never would have called from anywhere but her office, battle-ready in a button-down and five-inch pumps and a fierce scowl. She never would have called if she'd thought he'd have been anywhere but the office as well.

He sinks back against the pillows a little more deeply, his eyes still closed, feeling slightly more charitable toward the series of delays that caused him to still be in bed at this abnormally late hour.

"I'll have a new one to you by this evening," he offers charitably. "In the meantime, mark your calendar for the twentieth. My assistant can take care of booking you on a shuttle to DC."

"DC," she echoes flatly.

He loves how little she gives away. "That won't be a problem, will it?" he asks, letting a hint of his happiness leech into his tone.

"It's not entirely convenient," she says, her voice just slightly harsh over the hard _c._

"If you need a place to stay, I have a lovely apartment."

In the darkness created by his closed eyes, the sharpness of her inhale fills up his senses. "No. I'll book my own shuttle," she rushes out. The call abruptly ends.

He taps into the calendar app on his phone – first meeting of the day's not for another hour.

He'll spend the extra time in bed.

* * *

Castle keeps to the shadows of the cavernous ballroom, his muscles hard and tense. On alert.

His collar and tie are digging into his throat, cutting off his air. Or maybe it's rage he's choking on. It's hard to tell.

He keeps his eyes fixed on the door so he won't miss her, ignoring the dull ache above his eyes and in the back of his neck, the way his head is buzzing from too much caffeine and practically no sleep.

Kate's going to be pissed. She's going to be fucking furious the moment she's sees him, but Castle has weighed the thought of a Kate who's not speaking to him against a Kate at the mercy of an obsessive madman, and Castle will take angry Kate every time.

It's been a shitty week. A week of stilted silences, the air awkward and heavy with everything he's not saying. Except for those moments when he can't keep his mouth shut.

Castle doesn't know what more she can expect of him. He didn't kill Bracken the day the picture came in the mail, didn't rip him apart where he stood for threatening Alexis.

He listened to Kate, to her frantic voice in his ear telling him this was not the way, to the urgency of her hands on his face. Let her lead him away from Bracken's office without a word, leaving the senator staring after them, the bastard smirking like Christmas came early.

It killed him, but Castle went along with Kate and didn't beat the shit out of Bracken, but only because he didn't realize at the time - so _stupid_ – that she was going to insist on this.

On giving Bracken exactly what he wants.

The next morning Kate made the call from work while he was standing in line for their coffee, exhausted from pleading with her, from trying to find another way, from butting his head up against the wall of her fear, her determination to save Alexis, him, _everyone_, no matter the cost to herself. He wasn't even there when she had to talk the bastard, _agree _to his manipulations.

"It's the only way, Castle." He came into the 12th an hour later and found her hunched over her desk. When he sat in his chair, her fingers dug into his thigh, her body angled towards his as he stared straight ahead and shook his head, everything in him locked down. "I have to go with him, and I have to go alone."

Castle took a deep breath and carefully turned to look at her. "You can't seriously think I'm going stay here while you go to DC with that bastard _by yourself? _That's not how this works, Kate."

Kate shook her head, weary but determined. "We've been over this a thousand times. I'm not going to _DC _alone, just the dance. Bracken has to believe we're complying, we can't risk him realizing that we're not meekly doing his bidding."

"I'm not risking _you_. You'll be alone with him at the dance – "

"You guys will be in the surveillance van the whole time, and we'll be at _an official event_, surrounded by people."

"_Bracken's_ people; he can have you out of there so fast – " Castle fisted his hands so he wouldn't grab her wrists, but his words were loud and hard, calling too much attention to them. "You know there's more to this than just a dance, Kate!"

Kate threw her hands up in the air as she jerked to her feet, away from him, her voice rising. "I can take care of myself, Castle, you know that."

His stomach bottomed out as the guilt - the familiar guilt that had been with him for months, ever since the warehouse where she'd been willing to sacrifice herself to save him - whispered that maybe what she really meant was that she could take care of herself as long she didn't have to also take care of him.

Well. Fuck that. Whether Kate wants it or not he's here with her, _he will always be here with her_, and this time he won't be a liability.

He's not waiting in the damn surveillance van. He has connections; he knows a guy. He's standing right here with her.

There's a commotion on the other side of the room and Castle slowly straightens. He peers through the crowd and sees Kate's standing by the door. She's obviously just arrived, and Castle feels like he's been punched in the solar plexis. He has to fight not to bend at waist and gasp in air.

She's so fucking beautiful.

He's not the only one who thinks so. Bracken stands behind her, so close his body has to be brushing hers, and even from the other side of the room Castle can make out the expression of calculating obsession on Bracken's face. But it's what's behind the senator's expression, a hint of an obsession no longer just calculated but _consuming_, that twists Castle's guts with fear.

As he watches, his stomach twisting in knots for every breath they all three breathe, Bracken takes Kate's hand and pulls her onto the dance floor, his other hand wrapping around her waist. In his arms Kate is straight and stiff, her gaze flat over his shoulder as Bracken angles his head to try and catch her eyes.

Castle swallows back bile and clenches his fists to stop the shaking. Carefully in control, he steps out of the shadows and starts across the ballroom.


End file.
